Taking my mind off the rioting in London, I decided last night to get on with the Henry build, which involves modifying the Bachmann Henry model into its original form.
However, one thing stuck out as wrong for both the original Henry, and his rebuilt form. The tender. The side sheets on the standard Bachmann model are far too short. I was debating in the last blog post as to whether or not to bite the bullet and make the modifications, and as you can see from the picture above, it would need some additional material on the side sheets.
Well, you know me...!
Two strips of plasticard, 2mm thick, was stuck down after I carefully filed down either side of the moulded coal for them to rest on. These were stuck down with expoy and left to harden for an hour.
Note, that the rear of the tender will also need modifying at some point to match the TV series model.
The next step was to use my favourite filler - Humbrol's model filler. It's a grey filler which dries quickly, and sands down easily. In addition, to help sculpt the side sheets, I used Gamesworkshops' "Green Putty" which was left to harden overnight.
Then this morning, after careful sanding and filing to shape, we were left with the above. Doesn't that look much better? When you look carefully at photographs of Henry in the TV series, you can see the side sheets are just below the top of the roofline of the model. I may have to file them down a little bit more to make it perfect, but overall the look of the tender is significantly improved:
The whole model will now enter the painting stage, and be primed this afternoon ready for its first few coats of green paint. The wheelsets on engine and tender will be removed to be repainted into the same shade, as will the cylinders, to make the whole model match.
Until next time - when I'll be hopefully showing off a near-complete model.