Darius43

Plasticard cab front windows fitted. Primer on and test fit of body to chassis. Cab ends tidied up and headcode blanking plate/lights fitted. Cheers Darius

The rather nicely painted MTK bodyshell was obtained recently from eBay. There is a bit of cosmetic damage to one buffer at one end and a few scratches. The other end, however… The plan is to deconstruct, repair and reassemble the body to fit this Hornby chassis. First I’m going to try the hot water treatment that Phil recommended to see if it will melt the soldered joints… I plan to finish the locomotive as 47213 “Marchwood Military Port” as I worked as a civil/structural engineer on several port redevelopment projects in the early 1990s. The hot water immersion treatment worked after a fashion and the roof and bodysides were able to be separated. The lower inside faces of the bodysides were smoothed using a Dremel to enable them to fit snugly over the Hornby chassis. The undercut was made to the cab fronts and the cab sides. The cab windows were too fragile to survive the body separation process so will be recreated in plasticard. The body was then reassembled prior to filling and sanding and replacement of the cab front window framing. I also drilled out the fan vent apertures - to be covered by A1 Models etched grilles in due course. Cheers Darius

Calling this finished - perhaps on every level… Cheers Darius

Thanks Patrick. I’m enjoying restoring/building these MTK kits. There’s a certain presence that the less than perfectly flat body sides gives to these models that you don’t get with RTR models. Cheers Darius

A1 Models etched grille arrived today - primed, painted and fitted. Cheers Darius

You can make up a centre car by ordering the body, chassis and bogies etc. from the Bachmann Spares website. Bachmann Class 108 spares Cheers Darius

Photos restored in the RMWeb CMAC CAF3000 build thread Cheers Darius

Additional buffer beam hosiery fitted and light weathering applied to chassis to (almost) finish. Just waiting for the etched fan grille to arrive. Cheers Darius

I see that Swindon is now twinned with Easter Island and Cape Canaveral… Cheers Darius

Bogie steps made from plasticard. Cheers Darius

Decals applied. Still to make the bogie-mounted steps and add etched windscreen wipers. Cheers Darius

What an absolutely wonderful layout. I do have one question though:- After this, I added some roping around the base. I cannot for the life of me remember what this is called. I knew once. At any rate, the rope is for hanging paintings steeped in tea. It looks quite overscale, but I don't mind. Why would they steep paintings in tea and then hang them on the base of a water tower? Cheers Darius

Dunglazin. Cheers Darius

Cab handrails and hosiery fitted. Cheers Darius