Adding Character

It's been a couple of months since my MG Models 'Classic Diesel' build featured here, at the time it was put to one side awaiting some inspiration to hit as to what it was going to be used for. With the 'Getting Something Moving' project requiring shorter locos than most of my existing 4w fleet I have been looking at ways of completing the build. Wanting to add some character to the model I opted to look at how I could add some more detail to the underframe area to hide the Kato chassis and create something more realistic. 

My starting point was to look at 'Redgauntlet', the RHDR loco that clearly inspired the kit.

Scouting around the spares boxes I found some Parkside 4mm scale solebars and W-irons, from a poorly-built kit I had picked up at a show for a pound or so just because it had a decent set of Jackson-Romford wheels underneath. After a false start trying to thin one of the W-irons down, which weakened it somewhat, I opted to make the Kato chassis narrower  instead. This was not without incident... Eventually after a trip to the workshop to meet the "big" file all was well! The axlebox units were added to a structure made up from 20 thou styrene and 40 x 80 thou Evergreen strip.

Wanting something in between the W-irons that could be fashioned into a Lister-esque weight below the solebar. I scouted around the spares box and looked through the usual Dapol railbus and Drewery bits. However, what caught my eye was the tool/battery box part from the Knightwing shunter kit. Just one problem, there was only one, despite me building three of these kits over time. Luckily I remembered one was stuck to the back of a redundant tender in the loco bits box so that was carefully pinged off and cleaned up. 

On the loco body I decided to add a box alongside the bonnet at the cab end, echoing a feature on 'Redgauntlet' (on the opposite side to the picture above) and some other 15" gauge locos. This will have a sliding panel added once tidied up, it is only held in place with blu tac in the picture, hence the wonkyness!

I also opted to construct a new, more characterful, exhaust on the other side. This was soldered up and holes drilled in the corresponding positions on the bonnet side. The old hole in the bonnet top has become a filler cap, this is a Dapol Drewery coupling rod pin that had already lost it's hex head.

Just in case anyone thinks the weights look a bit low to the ground, there is an extra thickness of blu tac holding them in place , in practice they will sit at the same point as the base of the Kato chassis.

Colin