Suzie popped in briefly at Love Lane last Wednesday, and helpfully suggested that Wren was painted in "Invisible Green"!
I rather think she could be in line for the prize... ...but then again?
I have blown up one of the previously posted images, and it shows a lovely green dribble running down over a streak of proper black!
Whatever the jury verdict, that image also reveals that beneath the still extant BR muck, the inside of the frames were painted RED. So guess which tin of Humbrol I'll be opening before the boiler is mounted...?!
It will be an exercise to try and replicate the heavy concretion of oil, ash and brake dust, but I will draw the line at all the museum era fluff, visible bottom left on the above image. That will happen quite naturally in my workshop part of the room anyway...!
Still a way to go on the underframes, and progress has slowed a bit:
It has taken a while to work out where all the rivet holes etc., in the running plates have got to go!
It is starting to look more like a Meccano set by the day!
There are quite a few fittings at the footplate end that cannot be accurately located until I have sourced the material for the backhead, so I have decided that it would be best to mark out all those remaining holes with the plates in situ.
I was getting a bit fed up looking at the beast with six temporary bolts dangling over the rear headstock, and set myself to a tidy up!
Here is a problem...
When I decided to shorten the footplate on the model (and not to include the handrail and stanchions) right back at the beginning of the project, I had spaced out and pre-drilled the three holes each side on the headstock angle.
Although it would have been better to keep the spacing correct, and simply add another rivet in place of the corner stanchion, it doesn't really matter!
Now having seen the real thing, it is apparent that most of the countersunk rivets are anything but flush, as one might expect them to be. This has turned out to be fortuitous:
I would have preferred to use countersunk machine screws, but both the angle and the footplate are of slightly under-scale thickness, leaving insufficient metal to align, and even less thread for the slim securing nuts underneath! The solution was six regular button heads, filed down to flats.
They should have been shaped slightly round really, but it was tough enough going with a file - for me at least!
The button-heads have small radii at the base. This gave me the level to file down to, and also ensures that there will be no sharp edges to snag tender digits!
It was a right old game trying to "soften" the thread ends after they were trimmed, they were so short that gripping them was a nightmare!
I don't have any means of cutting a thread in a piece of scrap, and not quite enough thread was revealed if they were held captive with a nut in a plain hole!
Then I had an idea:
Not one was even slightly bruised, nor did any ping off to heaven knows where?...!
But was it nonetheless still an "inappropriate use of pliers", and therefore should it be added to a growing list of my crimes now...?
Pete.
