Hornby Class 50

[Forfarian]

Hi all
I have been looking for a Class 50 for a while now, when i spotted a "new but damaged" one on the Bay., after studying the pics closely I decided to have a punt! According to the seller he had damaged the grills on one side and broken the sole plate under the cab while removing the body!
Anyway I won it at £68.00 which I thought was a reasonable price. When it arrived I took of the body to find that one of the movable grills in about 30 bits, someone had been a tad heavy handed. The Cab sole plate was in 4 pieces but the retaining screws were still in place, I think someone had tried to fit the coupling underneath with a sledge hammer!
I managed to piece together one of the frames for the grill and insert all of the louvers with spacers to hold the at approx45 deg, this was all glued together with superglue and a cocktail stick, ( how they assemble these grills so they move is beyond me).
While the glue dried I pieced together all the bits i could find of the broken sole plate and glued them to a piece of stiff paper, using this as a template I cut the shape from some 2mm plasticard and drilled the 4 holes, I was slightly out with one hole, but used a size bigger drill overcome this, a quick coat of black paint and fitted to the loco, I then refitted the louvers after bit of fiddling about and glued them in.
The loco is on the rolling road running in as I type this, running smoothly.
All there is left to do is fit the decoder and program.
The mind boggles at the damage done to a BNIB loco! When all it needs is to ask a few questions.

[Bigmet]

...how they assemble these grills so they move is beyond me...

Patient young woman and a little bench jig to align the parts is the likely solution

... he had damaged the grills on one side and broken the sole plate under the cab while removing the body!...

I am continuously grateful for Johnny Ninethumbs, who never had this trouble with his Triang-Hornby-Wrennblo; even when he accidentally inverted the box and it fell on the floor. (Come to me you mangled beauties, and be restored!) Sounds like you have made a good job of this one, even if the collectorati would shy away in horror at its unoriginality. Since it is going to be operated on a layout, who cares?

The driveline design is very good in these, think it is much the same as the North American Proto2000 HO models. Only trouble I have had on the Hornby Brush 2 is the axle end pick ups splaying outwards over a few years running time, enough to release a leading wheelset. A little gentle bending has fixed this, no trouble since.

[Forfarian]

Back to the drawing board, as Bigmet said it is not perfect, but it’s my layout and I’m not a rivet counter, but I was not totally happy with the Louvre vent rebuild. Which got me thinking what would a workshop do in this situation with no spare vent and no way of repairing the old one. They would find an alternative, mesh. Where would I get fine enough mesh that would look right. A flour sieve, after serious threats on my life from my wife if hers went missing I bought one in our local el cheapo shop, cut the mesh off it and flattened it out, cut a piece the right size, removed the rebuild Louvre and cleaned up the body. Once I was happy with the fit of the mesh I gave it a coat of blue paint and superglued it in position. I must say it looks like a workshop repair and I am very pleased with the outcome.