'Avalon' - Finishing Touches

'Avalon', my subtle reworking of a completed and pre-painted Avalon Line loco is now completed. Having realised that the model was lacking an exhaust I produced one from a length of brass tube, sitting in an appropriately sized hole drilled in the bonnet top.

As an added refinement I added a support on the cab front using a recycled split pin - without realising that one side had no pin from a previous use! It is not noticeable in practice. Both the tube and split pin were blackened using Birchwood Casey gun blue prior to fixing in place. Vallejo gunmetal was used as the basis of the final colour with additional weathering.

I have also added wire loops to the industrial couplers in a 'U' shape, with the top of the side through the coupler also representing the pin of the coupler. These loops were also blackened with gun blue and the bit that was not meant to be there painted with matt black and the pin weathered with gunmetal.

The position of these loops was set in such a way that a MicroTrains coupler can be manually coupled, seen here with my tool wagon. Whilst automatic uncoupling is not possible, for use on a layout such as 'Odsock Corner' that is not going to be an issue!

 

With the completion of 'Avalon' my workbench is looking rather empty and we are getting to that part of the year when modelling slows down considerably and at the moment I don't really have the inclination or motivation to start anything else... So having made a promise to myself just over a year ago to update the blog weekly on a Saturday, and having pretty much stuck to that, I think we are probably now heading for a hiatus... 

Colin