After not being able to get a lot done on the workbench yesterday, having to ferry a friend about to and from hospital and spending some time with another friend for a photographic wander to get some autumn leaves before the forecast storms blow them all away, I made sure to spend as much time at the bench today as I could.
Laurie had sent replacement frets of the BSK interior parts, which are the right size now. I thought it would be a good idea to get a coat of base colour on them before I got stuck into the TSO underframe again. I don't know if you're familiar with the enamel paint range that used to be available from J Perkins. I had acquired some tinlets a while ago, and found one was almost exactly the same colour I had mixed earlier in this thread. For the record, it is 62 Matt Leather (Perkins match the Humbrol colour number scheme, which is handy).
Anyway, I slapped some paint all over the panels, thinking they would be dry enough to recoat in an hour or two. It turns out the Perkins paint needs five hours before it can be recoated. Five. Hours. So that's not getting a recoat and being completed today then.
I turned to the underframe. Things had been left with the electrical undergubbins and cross trusses in place, and paint all over everything. What I managed to finish today is the longitudinal truss members, the vacuum brake equipment and the dynamo fitted.
I thought it might be worth comparing the etched underframe against the cast and etched version.
Allowing for the millimetre slippage, from the frame to the centre of the dynamo on the BSK with the etched truss measures about 11mm.
On the cast/etched TSO, the same measurement is 9mm.
Not quite sure what that's telling anyone, and it's not really that obvious when the underframes are up the right way.
Anyway, both coach underparts are now at more or less the same point. I need to upgrade the bogies for the TSO - looking forward to that </sarcasm>. I was considering the handbrake linkage to the guard's compartment on the BSK, but I doubt you'd actually make it out under the coach in normal circumstances.
The upper works can now commence in some earnest, once those dastardly bogies are out of the way at least.
