Tuesday, May 29, 2007

G1 Pannier Tank


G1 pannier
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.
With Tomsk on the water it’s time for a new project – I wouldn’t want to get bored…

Actually Trevor rang me to say that the big box he had sent to me a couple of weeks ago had an owner who’d like to pick it up at a show in a fortnight if possible.

The box contained a nearly finished Gauge 1 Pannier tank. Nearly finished in the sense that there is a working chassis, footplate with cab attached and pannier unit. Most of the detail is in place. Basically all I have to do is solder the big lumps together and clean everything up. Finally a coat of primer is to be applied.

Thanks to Channel 4 showing the last Start Trek film I settled down to a couple of hours tinkering to see how far I could get. As it happens I did quite a bit. The main parts are pretty well built, although the boiler bottom was in the wrong place as the builder had moved it forward to clear the motor. I moved it back and cut a hole in it, which looks better.

Thanks to my little blowtorch I was able to fix the pannier to the footplate. I suspect this might be one reason why I got the job of finishing the project, the builder was running out of heat as the parts got bigger. This is a common problem with newbie modellers. You simply can’t have too big a soldering iron.

Anyway, I assembled the bits and then gave them a good clean in the sink. I have some more work to do and then need to start on the chassis. This bit is more complex and will require some fabricating but should be fun.

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