Well, I'd like to start this post by saying how utterly humbled I was to find that part of this 48xx build story appeared in the Society presentation for the Virtual Warley Show this morning. Thanks to those who included it, and for an excellent production overall. I hope that it attracts more modellers towards a finescale approach, whether that is in P4, EM or other scales/gauges.
And so back to the story of reinstating the detail that I've taken off the original Airfix model. For this, I'm referencing the original detailing article by Iain Rice all the way back in MRJ no.1. Iain had an understandable particular thing about the "face" of the locomotive. He described the incorrect chimney and smokebox door as like "IKB minus stovepipe hat and cigar". Yet he missed out what is, to me, almost as obvious a facial feature. Allow me to show you...
This is the model out of the box. I didn't have one of my own locomotive before I dismantled it, so this is stolen and cropped from Hattons' website:
Hattons 14xx original handrail.png
I assume that, like the smokebox door, it was originally specified from the Roche drawing published in one of his volumes of locomotive drawings:
Roche front end.JPG
Unfortunately, with the semi-circular shape prescribing a circle on the same centre of the door dart, and the squared off corners going away sideways, it bears no resemblance to the prototype. This is on a much larger arc, and runs to the point at which the handrail runs backwards down the side of the smokebox.
Wikipedia 14xx front end.png
I admit, I didn't spot this immediately. I planned to use the original handrail, with replacement Alan Gibson handrail knobs for a finer effect:
Smokebox rail (1).JPG
This is the trial fitting:
Smokebox rail (2).JPG
Smokebox rail (3).JPG
And at that point I realised that it simply didn't look right, when I checked it against the photos. There is no easy way to use rolling bars or similar to produce such an arc of the right length, and then have the straight lengths to bend back along the smokebox sides. So I did it the old-fashioned way, tweaking it a bit at a time with my fingers, and then when the arc looked correct, bending the ends back using snipe-nosed pliers to make a sharp bend. I don't think it turned out too badly:
Smokebox rail (5).JPG
Smokebox rail (6).JPG
Viewed from above, it's not quite parallel along the boiler, in part due to the slightly different lengths of the Gibson handrail knobs compared to the differences in diameter between the smokebox and the boiler.
Smokebox rail (7).JPG
But it's close enough. I may have a final tweak at how it looks from above prior to painting it, but I've very pleased to now have something that looks much more like the real thing.
Cheers,
Paul
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