Canopus: Handrails

I'm sure most modellers have something that they find difficult or hate doing. So far, my pet hate is handrails. I had real problems getting them right on the Quarry Hunslet loco and fitting them to Canopus hasn't been much easier.

Initially I thought they would be fairly easy to do this time as the saddletank casting had six small dimples in the right places for the handrail knobs. All I would need to do was to drill the holes at an appropriate angle. Having struggled with this before I knocked up a holder, inspired by Paul using a V block, from a small mitre box and some cardboard and then set about drilling the holes.

Annoyingly having drilled the holes on one side I found that while the two end holes were fine the middle one was well out of position. Rather than trying to fill the hole and drill a second one, I decided to just stick with two handrail knobs on each side of the saddletank. Strangely while the kit suggests three per side, and a works drawing Paul sent me also shows three per side, every photo I've seen only shows two, so I'm happy with just two.

Once I'd drilled the holes and checked the alignment I gently tapped the wire to the saddletank and then used a small drop of solder paint to fix the knobs to the wire. I've now reduced the wire to the correct length and tided up the solder, but I haven't fixed them in place as it will be easier to paint the body and then fix the rails in place, so for now they are neatly labelled (which side and which way around) and stored in the box with the remaining parts.

In theory Canopus should also have a curved handrail attached to the front of the tank that wraps around the chimney but I wasn't convinced that it looked great so I've filled the holes and will leave it off. As I'm not intending to create an accurate copy of Canopus I'd prefer to like how it looks and not add a part just for the sake of doing so.

You can also see from the photo that I've glued the filler cap to the top of the tank which I think completes the fittings I can add before I glue the tank to the boiler.