Keith's workbench.

As suggested by Paul not long ago, and since I'm usually working on various projects on an ongoing basis, I decided that as I'm about to embark on my first white metal model build, now might be a good time to start a 'Keith's workbench' feature, so here goes.
The plan is hopefully to use a Hornby Class 73 DCC ready chassis/motor and trailing bogie, mounting the MTK kit body onto it and thus saving the hassle of sourcing these parts. Anyway, the chassis I bought arrived a couple of days ago, and today, postie delivered the kit from "Rails" in Sheffield. Here's the starting point.

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The kit was a "Rails vault" buy, which basically meant that someone had bought the kit, maybe looked at it and not got around to building it (or thought better of it perhaps!), so I got all the bits out and checked that all that is supposed to be supplied is present. All seems ok when checking against the 'instructions'.

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As can be seen from the pic, there's quite a bit of 'flash' to clean from the castings, so that was this afternoons job, as per the 'instructions'. To say that these instructions are "rudimentary" would be an understatement! Still, if I'm supposed to be able to call myself a 'modeller', I'll give them a coat of looking at, Araldite at the ready, and, next 'spare time' being Friday afternoon, hopefully get stuck in. Watch this space!
Keith.

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Not had the chance to actually work on it today after all, but measuring up alongside the old Lima body, the MTK kit body length is shorter, so gonna have to look at this a bit more carefully since trying to make a decent job of shortening a metal chassis might prove problematical. More thought required before diving in. The guy who taught me my trade of Electrician always used to say "5 minutes thought saves half an hour of 'Rasting about'!" and I've always tried to remember that!

Keith.

 

I realised last night that my other Class 73 is the Lima body and chassis, so if needed, I could fit that body onto the Hornby chassis, leaving me with the plastic Lima chassis, which would be a whole lot easier to 'cut n' shut' if I need to, rather than either attempting to lengthen the MTK body or shorten the Hornby metal chassis......problem solved, or at least, manageable!
This morning, before any gluing, I pared away the cast 'handrails' on the MTK cast bodysides, then 1mm drilled to accept wire handrails, which I'm sure, will look much better. Next step was to araldite the 4 half bodysides together to form the 2 complete bodysides, and now left to set. 3 Grandkids visiting this afternoon, so I'll be too knackered to do anything else today!

Keith.

 

Managed a little more today, glued the two complete bodysides to the central box, using a roof section as a spacer between the top of the two sides to ensure correct spacing, as I clipped the glued assembly in my small table vice gently until the Araldite had set somewhat. As can be seen from the pic, I also took SR Man's advice drilling and filing out the headcode panels on each cab end (Thanks for the tip Jeff), to enable me to fit glazing and headcodes (possibly illuminated!). This is the first time I've used Araldite, only snag is (even with the '5 minute' version) that you then have to wait a couple of hours to let it set enough to safely handle the body. At least it stops me rushing headlong into the next stage and maybe missing something or making a 'pig's ear' of things....patience, patience!

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Had another session with the Araldite this morning, fitting both cab ends, followed by the cab roof ends, then left for a few hours to set (and for me to get the Araldite off my fingers.......boy is it sticky stuff or what!). Just had a second go at the body, having 'fettled' both roof middle sections to fit. This 'white metal' sure clogs up your files if you've a moderate amount of metal to remove, but having fixed the middle sections, here's where I'm at presently.

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.......and from t'other side.

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A threequarters on view.

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.....and finally, one from t'other threequarters on view. Next step I think, will be to look at how body and chassis are going to mate up, as I can't see any point in going further with construction until I've managed that. There is obviously going to be a fair bit of 'filling and fettling' of the gaps and odd dimples in the castings here and there, as they ain't the best metal castings I've ever seen.....maybe my choice of MTK for a first attempt at white metal kit building wasn't that good, but you've gotta start somewhere, and as I mentioned before, it's only a rectangular box, how hard can it be? That will remain to be seen when I come to attach body to chassis, but for the rest of today, I'll let things harden off before I maybe have to start hacking things about to get them to fit. More later in the week!
Keith.

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