Nick Dunhill
Western Thunderer
Yep Mick is correct, stupidly/unwittingly I built the wrong tenders. The LNER corridor and non-corridor tenders moved around a fair bit between A4s A3s etc to suit the work they were doing. E.g. Kings X to Edinburgh express locos had corridor tenders for crew changes on the move, Kings X to Doncaster non-corridor tenders were fine. The W1 was allocated to Donny and did the same trains each day in the 50s. Morning; Donny to Kings X, afternoon; Kings X back to Doncaster, so it only needed a non-corridor tender. Its original corridor tender, when it was the Hush-Hush, and then rebuilt as the W1 up until the early 40s, was re-allocated to Union of South Africa and still exists on the preserved loco. (Please correct me if this is inaccurate!)
At the time when I first started on this project (2015ish) Martin Finney stuff was out of production so I built Dave Andrews non-corridor tenders ready to go when I got loco parts. Now there's nothing wrong with the DA tender at all, in fact its an excellent kit and I was able to build some highly detailed tenders from them. The thing I overlooked was that DA designed the tender to be paired up with his A3 kit (he never did an A4.) Turns out that A4s have a much taller and wider cab than an A3, and although these tenders were built to be paired up with A4s, when passed down from A4 to A3s they had to be modified. The front was reduced in height to suit the cab height of an A3 and the sides were furled in at the front to suit the narrower cab. Dave's kit reflects this so the tenders I built were too short at the front (by a mile) and straight-sided to suit an A4 (or W1.) So they were a bit of a mongrel, not suitable for either an A3, A4 or the W1. So I couldn't save/sell them as A3 tenders and start again, and Richard and the rest of the Finney7 co-op lot took pity on me and offered to sell me some etches to build new bodies on the DA chassis.
All will be well by this time next week when they're at Warren H's house for paint.
At the time when I first started on this project (2015ish) Martin Finney stuff was out of production so I built Dave Andrews non-corridor tenders ready to go when I got loco parts. Now there's nothing wrong with the DA tender at all, in fact its an excellent kit and I was able to build some highly detailed tenders from them. The thing I overlooked was that DA designed the tender to be paired up with his A3 kit (he never did an A4.) Turns out that A4s have a much taller and wider cab than an A3, and although these tenders were built to be paired up with A4s, when passed down from A4 to A3s they had to be modified. The front was reduced in height to suit the cab height of an A3 and the sides were furled in at the front to suit the narrower cab. Dave's kit reflects this so the tenders I built were too short at the front (by a mile) and straight-sided to suit an A4 (or W1.) So they were a bit of a mongrel, not suitable for either an A3, A4 or the W1. So I couldn't save/sell them as A3 tenders and start again, and Richard and the rest of the Finney7 co-op lot took pity on me and offered to sell me some etches to build new bodies on the DA chassis.
All will be well by this time next week when they're at Warren H's house for paint.