This thing has been sitting on the shelf for what appears eons - my first and only brass steam loco kit (Oakville) built years ago
.
I've backdated it to the Southern Railway first modifications - cab, cab steps, lamp irons and bunker but retaining some of the US fittings namely the Nathan injectors, chime whistle, smokebox steps and the number disc on smokebox door. I had also corrected some faults such as shortening the front end of the chassis between the buffer beam and front driver and beefed up the connecting rod between the rear and centre drivers.
With this being built several years ago I made a bit of a hash of the rear of the cab... i.e. took too much off leaving a crater
. It was this which consigned the model to the shelf.....
With my metalworking skill sort of moving on a bit and being parsecs from reaching the Superleague of rebuilding (Mickoo, PAD, Dikitriki,
et al 
), I cut a new piece of brass from scrap etch, copied the front cab roof profile and cut and filed to shape.
A section was cut out of the cab rear and the new piece soldered in.
Although not absolutely perfect, I think there will be a witness mark after painting which I'll try and disguise with weathering to make it appear as if it had been battered by coal loading. There's obviously some tidying up to do to make it presentable e.g. manipulating the roof. Now, if I was modelling a BR version the increased bunker hopper height to halfway up the windows it would hide 90% of this join....
.
Naturally, having seen the photos above and thinking about it whilst typing this perhaps I should have cut a larger piece and placed the join in line with the top of the bunker. Having now thought of it.... I may just give it another try.
At this juncture this is likely to be my only brass steam loco kit build unless the Met E class appears.
In the meantime I'll stick to the odd carriage, electric and diesel loco brass kits as so far I find these a tad easier to build, methinks
....
