| 1. The bits in the bag: |
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| 2. First job was the underframe – which went together well. I bailed out on the brass wire and split pin truss rods, preferring the moulded versions. Should have filled the gas tanks with lead for extra weight: |
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| 3. The bogies also went together well, the addition of brass axle bearings, Markits 14mm wheels and a little liquid lead help smooth running. The bogies were assembled on a mirror tile to ensure they ran evenly: |
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| 4. Everything was then put together and spray painted Games Workshop 'Chaos Black': |
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5. Next came the body and roof. The body and ends went together well with the minimum of fuss. One unusual feature is that the solebars are part of the body moulding. A slight problem was around the corner as you may be able to see in the picture!
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| 6. The fit of the roof to the body was not good! Both the ends and roof moulding required a lot of fettling to get them to sit square to one another. I tried not to take too much off, as I did not relish the idea of having to start filling this area! |
Before...
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and after fettling
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| 7. Once everything was a good fit, the shell was ready to paint. The roof was painted with Halfords white plastic primer. The body was primed white and then brush painted Precision GWR brown, and black for solebars and buffer beams. Here is the body ready for painting: |
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8. After painting I added buffers, windows and window bars. One thing to note were the windows bars supplied as mouldings. Fine, except that some were already damaged and others became so when removing from the sprue (see photo). Thankfully you get several spare sets, in anticipation of this issue. In the end I removed the sprue using a slitting disk and trimmed them to fit with a scalpel.
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| 9. Bars were then sprayed white (Halfords primer) and mounted accordingly. HMRS transfers were applied and sealed with Plasticote satin polyurethane varnish (as used on fences and sold in aerosol by Screwfix). Body was then eased onto the underframe and Mek-Pak'ed in place. Buffers were fitted and the roof fixed with superglue and elastic bands for good measure. Et voila: |
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Not a particularly difficult kit, but I was very pleased with the result.