Saturday 4 April 2009

Donald the Scottish Twin - Complete!

After alot of careful work and planning, from a dull looking plastic tube and plastikard shaped locomotive parts on wheels, Donald, is complete and ready for work.

Many say that i rush these models or that i produce them to quickly, but, when you know what you are doing and how you want it to look, it really comes from experience and having great patience. I don't make my models to make other modellers jealous or think that they have not done alot to their own models, i've scratchbuilt models for quite a while now, and although i enjoy building the models, sometimes, i even doubt myself. But in all honesty, the models arn't better than others, like all modellers out there in this world, they are just as equal in detail and scructure, it's not about being the best at modelling, it's mainly about enjoying the hobby and being able to help and share the magic of creating the models with others, as i always try to do and have done.

Donald, is one of the most fave models i have done so far this year, i know there are alot of people out there who love the Railway Series, and would prefere the models to be in the RWS blue that the Rev .W. Awdry depicted them in, in his book series, and i must admit, i like them in the RWS blue also, but, i adore the tv series (the classic series 1-7, not the new series 8-9).

So, i chose to paint him in a Satin Black, which matches the tv series model, and it looks grand, i like some malechite paints and satin paints, i'm not a huge fan or user of Gloss or Tan paints.

The chassis he runs on came from a S/Hand Hornby 'Thomas' Diesel model, the tender was scratchbuilt and uses the tender wheels from a Dapol 'Castle' Class 4-6-0 tender. there is no chassis underneath the tender like on other RTR tenders, the wheels are held in place with some whitemetal axle boxes, glued into the plastikard frames. The buffers are sprung and the couplings used on the model are Screw-link, like on a real locomotive, with an additional Universal hook and loop coupler, which is already attatched to the RTR chassis.

The whole body and tender were scratchbuilt using some helpful scale drawings that were printed off and used as a template, these were them drawn on the plastikard sheets and carefully cut out using a hobby knife, the plastikard was them filed down and carefully glued together using Slaters Mek-Pak liquid 'Polystyrene' Cement.

It has taken a while, but the model is finally finished, and i announced that once Donald was completed, i would then make a start on his twin, Douglas. ;)


Photographs are Copyright
© 2009 by The Thomas Modeller












































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