My English Electric 'GT3' Project.

I did actually think the Red Oxide primer was closer to the colour of the real thing, but I've since printed out the pic of the real thingI showed earlier in the thread onto photographic paper and it does look brown-ish, but with more red in it than the "Russet Brown", so I'm going to take the pic with me tomorrow and visit my local model shop to see if I can find a better match.

 

I received the 'plunger pickups' from Alan Gibson today, so have now managed to "Shoehorn" them into the tender chassis, there ain't much space and it was a tight fit but I've managed it and all are working ok, although not too much clearance between opposing inner ends of the plungers. The pair of heat shrunk sleeved wires to the left are to be connected to the loco's pickup bars when completed and tender permanently attached.

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I wasn't happy with the "Russet Brown" finish coat on loco and tender bodies, so after trying a few different colours/combination mixes, I've settled on Railmatch "Freight Bauxite", which although Brown-ish, has a little more Red in the mix. This is a satin finish, but after decal fixing has been done, the bodies will get a coat of clear gloss varnish to both give the paintwork a shine and fix the decals. Apparently the loco when on trials was pretty much always shining clean (at least, at the beginning of a run!) and glossy, so this finish should work out ok, hopefully.

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Things have slowed down somewhat on this build due mostly to my still suffering from a heavy cold, not helped by a midweek 'flu' jab......just when I was getting back on form! Anyway, I have now completed the tender paint/decal/varnish work and all now assembled up ready for permanent connection to the loco when that is finally finished. Not being happy with the Rover "Russet Brown" paint, I looked around for an alternative and ended up with what I felt was the closest match which I felt was Railmatch "Freight Bauxite". This has what I feel has the right amount of 'redness' (for want of better words!) in the paint rather than too much brown as with the Russet Brown. Previous experience with attempting to get decal lining straight proved useful, although with these particular decals (from Cambridge Custom Transfers), a different method of application is used. Instead of just dunking them into water (with or without a drop of washing up liquid!), you cut out the decal so as to leave a minimum of overlap, position it close to the desired final position, then brush on a small amount of water, leave for a few seconds and then slide the decal off the backing paper and into position. This worked much more easily than the normal method, and in fact, the instructions stated that if this was attempted, the decal would curl up and be useless. As there is much less lining on the tender than the loco, it seemed an ideal way to learn the new method, and the only slight snag was that the lengths of lining were about 5mm too short for the full length of the tender, meaning a joint in the lining, although not too difficult.
I normally overfinish loco's with a satin varnish, but apparently GT3 was kept very clean and shiny (I guess as a "Demonstrator", it was representing the English Electric Company, so it was kept rather cleaner than most!), so on this occasion, I opted for a gloss finish clear varnish and the end product (in my opinion) doesn't look too far away from my earlier posted pic of the real thing. See what you think.

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Over the last few days, I've managed to complete this project, so now the loco body is finally decaled and gloss varnished, it was much easier to connect the tender to the loco at this stage, necessary since I had to solder the tender pickup connections onto the loco pickup 'busbars.
Just visible is the turned over end of the 'coupling pin' attaching tender to loco.

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After having tested the loco on the rolling road, the body was then attached, and back onto the rolling road for a 'running in' session. All running smoothly so far.

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Rear quarter view.

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Side on view.

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.....and finally, doing what I built it for, pulling a train! Despite the relatively small size of the motor, due I guess to the chosen gearbox ratio, it does the business. As a project, I reckon it's taken me over a month from start to completion, with a few 'blips' along the way due to delays with missing parts/failed motor etc, plus one or two suppliers who were.....how shall I put this.....a little slower at supplying ordered parts than I would have wished, but I got there in the end. Now on to the next project which I confess I have already started in the occasions when I was awaiting parts/ paint drying/ Araldite curing etc, a BR/SR Class "01" using the chassis from the cheap new Hornby "Jinty" loco I bought a couple of months ago.
Keith.

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I'll need to do a bit of light weathering, possibly around exhaust and train heating boiler outlets, but that'll be about it I reckon as it was seemingly kept pretty clean during the test runs. Other than that, it'll stay much as it is now.
Keith.