Hank the American Engine - Completed!

It's been another lovely porject to do, and i can happily say to all users following this blog and watching it, that Hank is now fully finished and running on the Elsbridge layout, he is one of the smoothest running engines i have ever made, and it is also with great thanks to my friend Michael, who helped with the project, as he too has also made Hank using the same method as me.

Hank is an american locomotive, based on a PRR K4, which is modelled by Bachmann in America in the Spectrum range, these models are all super deailed, and come in different liveries, i bought one from my local model dealer a year ago, and it has since been left in the box, i wanted to model Hank after seeing him depicted in Series 12 of Thomas and Friends (which has now moved fully into CGI in Canada).

His class of locomotive, is something rare to see on Sodor, the fact he runs on standard gauge track is remakable, considering that the gauge in America is slightly larger than UK standard gauge. Hank is infact the first continental locomotive to arrive on the railway, and even though he only had a one time appearance to himself, hopefully, he will make another debut in the CGI series.

Modelling Hank

Hank was made using a Bachmann PRR K4 pacific, the model was taken apart and the loco and tender bodies, sprayed with a Ultramarine spray paint, which i bought from an oline store known as Fatt-Buddah. The bodies were given two coats of Ultramarine and left to settle overnight.

Once the paint had dried, i then painted the boiler bands a satin red and left them to dry for a couple hours, one touch dry, i could then work on adding other details to the model, the handrails were cut to the correct lengths, and left for later. During this time, i painted the chassis wheels red, including the tende bogies and left them to dry, once set, another coact was applied and he chassis then moved to one side for later.

Once everything was dry, i then made up the small boxes for the running plate and glued them in place, these were then painted, along with the cylinder blocks, the same colour as Hank's bodies. The original bell casting was carefully removed, and the plastic one from the trackmaster model glues in place and repainted gold, along with the whistle and safety valves. The face was also removed from the trackmster model, to be added once i had painted the smokebox and cab roof, a sorta metallic silver, which was mixed with a little gunmetal paint to give it a shiny metal coat look.

Once the bodies were placed back on the loco and tender chassis, Hank was starting to look just like the tv model, onlyt thing left to do, was add a buffer beam to the rear of the tender, which i cut off from a Mainline GWR 0-6-2T body and painted buffer beam red. The handrails were carfully glued back in place, and then carefully painted silver with a thin brush.

Last but not least, the face was added, and held on with a tiny peice of blu-tac either side of the smokebox casting, and there you have it, a simple and easy way to make Hank, using a Bachmann K4, modelled by yours truly, and giving anyone else here, easy steps to make him yourself.

Images are copyright © 2010 by The Thomas Modeller