Your Projects

From my previous posting, I now have the smoke deflectors and the A3 which is 60043 Brown Jack. I was happy to buy the A3 even though a deflector is separate from the loco, its been named 'Lefty Brown Jack', it came with the loco so I can repair it. Actually this deflector shows me the mounting arrangement on its inside (which Hornby have modelled) which is a great asset, as the brass etches include the mounting bracket pieces. As for the double chimney, yes Hornby have modelled it as a separate item, but to remove it from the loco will damage it and the smokebox, so I am hoping my friend Stephen who can cast small brass items will be able to make a mould with it in situ and hopefully add a spigot on its underside which can fit directly into the OOLS Flying Scot.

My last project was making Bittern Double Tender. My new project is going to be as above. To date I have bought a FS body off Ebay. I have on order a set of German style smoke deflectors which are a brass etch, so it should not be too much of an exercise to (ahem!) execute!

I have included a photo of FS which I am going to reproduce.

After a bit more work, the castle conversion now looks like this:

and what's more, it runs like this:

Towards the end of the run it was suffering from a slight slow down every 4th turn of the wheels. I have others that do this, but haven't figured out a decent fix yet, something to do with the timing shaft I believe.

There's no whistle at the moment as I haven't worked out how to fit one in. I did cut one down until it fitted, but by that time it had stopped whistling (or maybe only so dogs could hear it). Also, there's no coupling at the rear of the tender yet.

I was thinking what other locos did Hornby Dublo make and a Dublo 'Barnstaple' locomotive looked promising - a large 4-6-2 Pacific. Still the wrong region for me, but it's what we have.....

The 4-6-0 Castle looks interesting, but is way above my current skill level, but member David is currently making a superb conversion....

A West Country body from Fleabay was purchased ....

The boiler is narrower than the Duchess, so an A3 looks likely to be the doner drive system..