A slight digression down memory lane.
After reading Heather's ressurection build of her "Shedmaster" Ivatt class 2 tank, it brought to mind my own trials and tribulations with my build of the Oakville kit. This was my first foray into 7mm loco kit building and what a baptism of fire it was. In comparison, the A3 was a walk in the park and if I was building the Oakville kit today I'd still struggle. Here it is sitting on the article from MORILL mentioned in Heather's thread.
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The frames were miss matched as was one of the rear axle holes, and overall the etchings needed a lot of fettling to get them to fit. The white metal casting were mostly junk and the most important ones were replaced by brass castings from Shedmaster. The chassis was build rigid albeit with jointed rods but strangely it still runs well enough.
The excellent boiler top castings are from Shedmaster.
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And the slide bars, cross head and piston rod that replaced the awful white metal ones in the kit. Look at that lovely castellated nut on the cross head. The holes in the various valve gear rods were mostly over etched and as can be seen I left the screw head showing at the motion bracket. Might do an upgrade on it after I retire if my brother will let me, as it belongs to him.
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The cab interior leaves much to be desired, but its shortcomings can hardly been seen from normal viewing angles.
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It turned out OK in the end and I think captures the character of these nice little prairie tanks. It was lined out with 4mm scale transfers, as by the time we had spent a small fortune on the replacement castings, neither I or my brother had the cash to buy 7mm ones.
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By the way, if the hob looks dirty it is probably because some git has used up all the hob bright on other things.
Cheers,
Peter