Alan Keef K12 in O9

This isn't the entry I had planned to write this week, that will have to wait for a few days when I can easily access the scanner to help illustrate it....

As an alternative, and hinted at a few weeks ago, I thought a look at the O9 Alan Keef K12 I built last year might fit the bill.  This was intended for my industrial micro layout (pre Misterton Fen Tramway) and was built reasonably to scale, being made just a few mm longer and wider than scale in order to fit the Bachmann Plymouth chassis.

Bodywork was marked out on 30 thou styrene and cut to form a basic 'kit' of parts:

This is thinner than I often use and in many respects this was an experimental model.  The nature of the real loco is that it was difficult to build a separate chassis/underfame unit so this was integral with the bodywork.  Much use was made of re-enforcement behind all joints and to keep the bodywork square:

Just in case you were wondering, the springs were wound by hand from fuse wire around plastic rod... at this stage to loco did stall for a while but I eventually had a work-in and finished off the detail, soldering up an exhaust pipe and adding bolt heads on the plain cab side:

I really was intending on keeping this loco but with the change in emphasis and era for the micro layout it was eventually put into primer and placed for sale.  I had the rather odd experience of posting it to the other side of the world from the rather grand, old style Post Office in Filey, whilst we were on holiday!  Before it went a trip to 'Shifting Sands' was made for the benefit of the photographer:

So there we are, most of the industrial stuff is done, hopefully before the end of the week I can write (and illustrate) the next two blog posts I have planned....

Colin