Pushing the Bo-Bo towards the paintshop

In my last post I left the MicroTrains coupler hanging below the bufferbeam of the A1 Models 'Royal Anchor' look-alike, looking for a way to make this look more realistic. My initial thought was to use an extension plate to the centre of the buffer beam, based on the arrangement of ex-Fairbourne 'Rachel' (left below). However in practice this did not look so good with the chunkiness of the MT coupler box. What was desirable was something more like ex-Fairbourne 'Katie' in Haigh Hall/Cleethorpes condition (right) where the angle-sections remained from former Fairbourne arrangement of "cow catcher" either side of the coupler.

One problem, I had no Plastruct 'L' section and slicing it up from channel did not look right. I was also concerned that plastic section here would be quite vulnerable during construction and painting and could snap or just become unstuck from the brass bufferbeam. Make that two problems, I had no brass 'L' section small enough either. After some rummaging I found some brass fence posts, etched with a join down the middle which would fold nicely to 'L section of about the right size. If only I could have soldered them to the bufferbeams before I glued them to the loco, that would be super-strong! Oh the benefit of hindsight... However, what I could do is solder them to a backing plate the of the same strip as the bufferbeam and glue that in place, giving the advantage of a greater glued area. It was a fiddly soldering job but I got there in the end (inset).

One of the completed coupler units was offered up to the loco and I was pleased with the result. This did however show up that it really could do with is some empty boltholes for the other bits of ironwork and where buffers may have once fitted.  I made up some templates to allow marking and drilling of the brass but this was proving very difficult to make it look how I saw it in my minds eye.

After some thought I cheated and made up 5 thou styrene pre-drilled overlays and superglued them in place. Job done! I also added tiny bits of Plastruct hex rod to the brass angles to emphasise what might have been bolted in the holes. By the time this photo was taken I had blackened some of the exposed brass areas ready for the painting stage

After a wash down I then applied a light coat of primer to the body. As I suspected it might this revealed a few areas that need attention before moving on. Also, a little nagging doubt started to form, was I really happy with those curved lines over the windscreens? I started to delve deeper into 'Royal Anchor', because whilst I wasn't actually modelling her, most of the inspiration was coming from that direction. It started with looking at liveries, from the original two-tone grey with red trim (very 50s!); R&ER dark blue; and the various schemes work at Carnforth, such as two-tone green. What was clear is that the line on the drawings that I had scribed into the body was just the paint line of the R&ER livery and was not there in reality other than perhaps being the point the curvature started.

 

As I was not really happy with the way the lines had turned out this prompted me to fill the "furrowed brow" and once smoothed out re-apply the primer. I now have the freedom of choice between a curved paint join or straight across as per the Carnforth repaints. I then masked up the bufferbeam areas and sprayed them with red primer to give a base to the bufferbeam red in due course. This is a bit rough around the edges but will be lost in the final paint job.

As per my usual rule I don't generally take photos of paintshop progress, so you may have to wait for the next update!

Colin