From a "Hunt" to a "Shire"

[Ex-Pat]

This covers the conversion of a Hornby R3495 62760 “The Cotswold” to 62716 “Kincardineshire” – the raison d’être being covered in my layout thread at viewtopic.php?f=22&t=50019&start=75#p631068.

This is the loco as bought.

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The first jobs were to cut away the cylinder outside steam pipes, remove the nameplate, and drill the frame lifting holes in front of the smoke-box.

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A hole was drilled into the side of the smoke-box in order to take a new pipe. Part of the pipe-work along the left-hand side of the boiler and one of the lubricators needed removal - the remainder of the pipe was left in place as a support to the eventual reversing lever that would be fashioned. Milliput was used to fill in the voids left by the outside steam pipe removals.

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Whereas the nameplate was bolted to the outside of the splasher on the Hunts, on the Shires it was set back from the edge of the splasher, and this needed spigots to help keep the nameplates upright.

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Just a trial fitting of the nameplate

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[Ex-Pat]

Particularly prominent on the Shires are 2 boxes just in front of the splasher (possibly something to do with the reversing gear?) and these were formed from wood with a pinhead to represent what appears to be relatively prominent in photos.

Another obvious embellishment to represent something on the rear splasher just in front of the right-hand cabside was fashioned from nickel silver and thick copper wire.

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This shows the latter apparatus in place (the protuding copper pipe could be at a better angle but hopefully painting will improve its looks), and also more pipe-work removal on the right-hand side.

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Attention was then diverted to the tender, and the reason for my question at:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=51197

now becomes clearer.

“Kincardineshire” had a GCR 4,000 gallons tender with inner plated coal rails. Thus the Hornby supplied 4,200 gallons Group Standard tender was not at all suitable, and I bought a Bachmann O1 tender body to put on the Hornby chassis. Very much a case of “See how it goes and hope it works”!

With the wheels and electrical bits removed from the tender the first steps were to remove the rear and front steps (and surrounding metal) to enable a gradual first fit of the body.

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Gently does it - things are gradually working out.

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[Ex-Pat]

Sensing that it might just work all right after all, more drastic surgery took me well beyond the point of no return.

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Careful filing resulted in the body being a nice push-fit.

I was acutely aware of not leaving the tender chassis too weak by over-filing and therefore had to settle for leaving the buffers approximately 0.5 mm too high.

This view shows the height comparison with a Bachmann K3 tender.

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In contrast, the tender body itself needed only slight modification.

A start has been made on fully cutting out the rivetted front plate - necessary because the Hornby chassis is a couple of mm longer than would be ideal.

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The plated coal rails were effected by gluing thin plastic strips to the top of the tender.

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[Ex-Pat]

All rails now added. Very difficult to keep absolutely parallel but painting will help disguise this.

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Short lengths of wire had to be used when re-soldering the 4 wires from the loco, and thankfully it all worked satisfactorily.

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The Hornby GS tender frames could not be shortened much at the front and protrude a couple of mm under the tender footplate. I offset this to a small degree by fashioning a new tender coupling link.

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Then I came to apply mixed traffic lining to the tender and found that the transfers I had bought many, many years ago were completely inseparable from their backing sheet.

So I am currently awaiting delivery of a new sheet from Modelmaster (and who assures me his transfers will last 40 to 50 years!).

Back to the loco and now the reversing rod, the “box thing”, front step grab handles, lamp brackets & pipe from side of smoke-box have been added.

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Attention then turned to painting as far as I could.

[Ex-Pat]

This is the gap between loco & tender with the original Hornby coupling.

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And this is the gap with the self-fashioned coupling - in fact it could probably do with being even shorter, The new "6" transfer looks larger than the original Hornby numbers but a spot of weathering will help disguise it.

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62A shed-plate in evidence.

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Wherever possible I remove the tender coupling and replace it with a piece of wire bent to give it the right height for accepting the coupling of coaches or wagons. This was the method used by the late Frank Dyer on his Borchester layout.

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The Hornby body is much “glossier” than the Bachmann weathered tender and so I toned down the loco body with mainly vertical brush strokes of matt black. Needs some more subtle touch-up work though!

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So, all that's left to do is apply the tender (and maybe splasher) lining when I receive the transfers, and then improve the weathering.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Looks good, have you any more in mind.

manna

[Ex-Pat]

G'Day Gents

Looks good, have you any more in mind.

manna

Thanks manna no conversions as such (they're your field of expertise!) but I do have D30, J35 & J36 kits to tackle some day/month/year!

[carnehan]

Something very different from you Ex-Pat but the results have your same stamp of quality workmanship to it.

Inspiring.

Paul

[Ex-Pat]

Thanks Paul - I would be delighted if it inspired somebody else to tackle the same, or similar, conversions.

[luckymucklebackit]

Lovely work Ex-Pat - bet you are glad it wasn't one with lentz poppet valves!!

Jim

[Ex-Pat]

Thanks Jim - I was so disappointed that that wasn't the case!

[Ex-Pat]

The transfer lining sheet arrived.

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(Any camera experts know the likely cause of the centre smudge - I can't see anything on the lens?)

The two top corners have been applied and now the top edge is being teased off its backing card.

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One side finished – a couple of join marks are visible but eventual weathering will hide them.

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The splashers have also been lined, and I was going to do the boiler bands as well, but realized the existing solid red strip was going to take an age to scrape off – so I’ve left them (for now at least!). So,”Kincardineshire” has been coaled and turned ready for its return duty to Edinburgh, and then, no doubt, on to its home shed at Thornton Junction.

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[luckymucklebackit]

Superb Ex Pat - Lining is one of the trickiest jobs to do successfully and you have done a great job, I have a Mainline Jubilee waiting for lining, I can't pluck up the courage to start it.

Jim

[Ex-Pat]

, I can't pluck up the courage to start it.

Jim

Many thanks Jim for the compliment - it's not perfect, but it is a distinct improvement on my last tender lining job on a Jamieson V2 kit way back in the late 1960's.

All those awful lumps in the paintwork - were airbrushes even around then, I wonder?

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Can't even remember how I did the lining - although it almost looks hand-done I seem to recall that I might have used lining transfers that weren't a patch on today's products.

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Some year the plan is to strip down this V2, improve the handrails etc., salvage the chimney to replace a double chimney on one of my A3's and then scratchbuild the unique chimney for 60813 in black.

Getting back to "Kincardineshire" I was viewing the tender lining procedure with some trepidation, but in the end I found it quite straightforward - possibly a tribute to the standard of current day Modelmaster transfers.

I'm sure you'll find your Jubilee much easier than you think, and I look forward to seeing it!

[Ex-Pat]

Unlike with “Kincardineshire”, I know for a fact that 62679 “Lord Glenallan” visited Hawick, as I have a photo of it on shed there. For me it was therefore the natural choice for a re-naming of 62690 “The Lady of The Lake”.

Most re-namings merely involve affixing a new nameplate & numberplate – however the D11/2 class (along with other Scottish Classes D29/D30/D34/J36 etc.) had painted names, and many years ago I had purchased the Modelmaster transfer set 4007A. This included a selection of names/numbers from those classes plus a couple of ex-LMS Scottish classes.

It didn’t however include the names I specifically wanted and for years I was toying with the idea of cutting out individual letters from the names supplied to make up the name I wanted. I now steeled myself to doing just that.

Here’s the Lady before she vanished.

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Rather surprised to encounter this puddle of oil when I took the body off the chassis.

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Last view of name and number.

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Blanking transfers ready to be applied.

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Looks like the Lady has vanished – note the non-perpendicular step that obviously evaded quality control! (Fixed by removing and re-glueing.)

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T.B.C.