I have read quite abit about the London & North Eastern Railway's Class 'X1' Tank Engine, known as No.66 'Aerolite', with thanks to the info on the LNER Encyclopedia website and some useful info found at the Exe Model Rail Society in Exeter.
It was quite tricky to make the body, since i have never built any models from scratch before, but this one has been a great challenge, it is abit of a shame that there is not yet any models of this particular class in the 4mm scale kit range, and it has been a rather enjoyable project, so i am very happy with the results and look forward to having it in good running order.
The Models Construction
The actual body aswell as the running plate, buffer beams and coal bunker are all made from plasticard, these were drawn onto the card using a scale template which was printed off on the computer, the templates were then placed carefully onto the card and using a permanent marker, i drew around the template, making sure that care was taken as it is a real pain to get permanent marker marks off if the lines become smudged. Once the lines were done, i then carefully cut around the lines using a craft knife, and also cut out the holes for the cab, front and rear, and also cut out the shape of the cab door/entrance.
Once i had cut out all of the plasticard bodyparts i then began to glue them together with some plasticard super-bond, making sure that each part of thr body was alligned and looked accurate, this took some doing, but eventually, all the parts gradually came together, so then, after letting the glue set, came the next part of the project, building the boiler.
The boiler was made using an old discarded pen tube from a permanent board marker, along with some useful bits and bobs from a Tri-ang M7 Tank Engine and a Bachmann J72 Tank Engine, from the J72 model, i used the smokebox and dome to make the accurate looking boiler as seen on the real life 'Aerolite' locomotive, originally, i was to use a Hornby 14xx smokebox, but it proved to be too overscale and when the wooden railway Whiff face was placed onto it, it looked truly out of line, and so, the 14xx tank smokebox was scrapped.
However, the J72 smokebox proves to be alot more realistic, the wooden Whiff's face, when placed over the front of the smokebox door mould, fit's perfectly, so it was decided that the J72 was the perfect donor for this project.
The drive wheel diameter of the X1 Tank Engine is 5ft 7.75in, i tried to find a suitable set for this project, and eventually, found that the M7 0-4-4T drive wheels were perfect, so after dismantaling the M7 chassis, the wheels and axle were then added to a chassis i had borrowed from a Titfield Thunderbolt kit, which was just lying around and not being used, this chassis is perfect now that it has the wheels i required to make it, the leading axle was borrowed from an old tender kit and the trailing bogie has wheels that were used on the Hornby James and 9F goods locos in the early 80s, these matched a magazine image i had of Whiff perfectly, so now, all of the chassis is just waiting to be motorised.
Painting the model, i used Railmatches 'Br Steam Locomotive Dark Green', (with thanks to SimierskiUK for showing me the railmtach precision paint range) and some HMRS LNER locomotive lining transferes, these have always come in handy when lining a model, i have often painted the lines on, but they more often than enough look terrible, so i stick with HMRS all the way. The Body was given four coats of Dark Green, which were allowed to set for a whole week, before lining was then applied, the tricky part with lining is that you cannot always change it once it has been placed on, so my tip is that if it looks off, paint over it and try again, it works, and is hardly noticeable...
Lining the tank body, cab and bunker was the hardest part of all, in the picture i have, it shows Whiff with a single white line and a thick black line running along the top edges of his body, these were done using the HMRS loco lining, but painting over one of the white lines with a satin black by Humbrol, this method took almost five tries to get right, at the time, i did not have alot of patience with the model, and itmesed up big time, so, i just had to calm down and do it carefully, making sure that my hand was kept steady when painting the black band to match the picture.
The running plate was painted with a spray primer and left to settle for two hours, when it was touch dry, i then painted the buffer beams a scralet red and the wheel valances were painted a dark reddish colour, i'm not too fussed about the colour of the valance covers, as they will be weathered once the model has ben motorised, same with the body and running plate.
So, there you have it, Whiff has come a long way and i am proud that my modelling has also come a long way too.
No comments:
Post a Comment