Quarry Hunslet: Now With Brass Knobs On!

So today's job was to fit the final detailing pieces to the locomotive; the handrails. I'd put this off as I had a feeling it might not be particularly easy to get all four handrail knobs in the right place so that the rails are both horizontal and at the same height on both sides of the saddle tank. I wasn't wrong as it's taken me a number of attempts to get it right.

I started by looking at a number of photographs and eventually spotted that the knobs were at the same height on the saddle tank as the rivets on the cab front. This made positioning the rear two knobs fairly easy. It also turned out that the 6mm masking tape I had to hand was a perfect fit between the bottom of the tank casting and the rivets. This meant, in theory, that I could lay a piece of tape along the length of the tank to get the right height for the front two knobs. After aligning the tape, I drilled the four holes and test fitted the knobs (these are the short handrail knobs from Eileen's Emporium) and brass wire for the rails themselves. The right hand side (as seen from the front) was pretty much spot on but the left side was terrible; somehow I'd ended up with the hole too far forward and too far down. I filled the hole with some Deluxe Materials Perfect Plastic Putty, waited for it to dry and then drilled a new hole in what I thought was a better spot. I'm not sure how, given how close the two holes were, but this time I was too far back and too far up. So the hole was filled again and then a third hole drilled. This one is much better, although not perfect, but by this point I was running out of casting to drill into so it will do.

I haven't glued the handrail knobs into place as it makes sense to do that after I've painted the tank, which also means I haven't finally trimmed the rails to the right length either, but the video should give you a pretty good sense of how it now looks.

As well as getting it to run further in each direction along the track (just for GB) the eagle eyed amongst you may notice that I've been at the Archer rivet transfers again. the whistle mounting bracket is now riveted to the cab front, if that isn't attention to detail then I don't know what is!

The only things now missing are the things I can't fit until it is painted; the reversing lever (which I can't fit until the cab is fixed in place), the whistle, and name and maker plates, which haven't yet arrived from Narrow Planet. This means the next step is to find a can of primer