Next up the backhead. I had previously scraped off the moulded details that were being replaced, so now ig was just a matter of adding the various etchings, resin castings and wire to represent the plumbing. Here the wash out plugs and surrounds are in place, along with the water level gauges, regulator and footstep under the firehole door. The hand wheel controls are all quite high up so I assume the step was to assist in reaching them. At this stage I had overlooked a missing wash out plug higher up between the water level gauges.
Here the grease lubricator pump is installed along with the piping. The unions are very small and I was concerned that drilling them out to 0.4mm would case them to break, so I went with 0.3mm and used brass wire from the strands of some picture frame wire that I had.
The pipes were then bent into position, one by one and super glued to the back head. It was easier to terminate the pipes at the edge of the backhead before fitting it to the boiler. I marked the position of the pipes on the boiler and fitted them before the backplate. On the prototype, the pipes pass through the cab front plate and run along the boiler, before spreading out to their various locations. These are hidden by the water tanks so I'm not adding them. The valve on the floor has been cobbled up from the kit part, plus a part cut from one of the valves on the dome, that was not used.
The reversing mechanism goes on the right hand side. Here it is assembled with some additional parts from the Eduard set.
Here's a view of the left hand side with more detail added.
And from head on. The damper operating levers were added from copper wire in preference to the etched parts from the Eduard set. The thicker pipe looping over the grease pump and down the firebox front, is the slacking pipe. From looking at images of the preserved locos, there is some variation on how this is fitted, so I've just picked the ond I preferred. Further details have been added to the front of the backplate, including the missing washout plug.
On the right hand side, the reverser mech has been temporarily fitted, along with the cylinder drain cock operating lever.
Moving on to the gauges, I'm using a mixture of the kit parts and etchings. Here the dials from the kit are fixed to the etched support plate and the piping added.
I've no idea where the individual pipes should go so I'm going to route them down the side of the boiler, hence the reason for the reversing mech not being fixed.
The cab sides have received further attention also. As mentioned earlier, I had no joy folding up the "U" channel etched bottom runner for the sliding window frames. However, the top runner is a simpler fold so these have been added. There are some nuts to add where the circles are, but I'll do those later.
On the other side, the top runner has been added along with additional resi parts and pipework.
And from a rear angle which shows the handles better.
Cheers,
Peter
