Hudson Complete

The Hudson has also been making slow but steady progress between work on the layout, but has gone fast enough to catch up the O&K while in the paint-shop, such that the final weathering and varnish was carried out on both at the same time.

My deviation from the instructions left me with the body and footplate/frame as separate assemblies, which made spray-painting easier! The green is Halfords spray enamel as I used on the Lister a couple of years back and is rather shiny, the can of black I had in also turned out to be gloss. Ho hum.

 

I wanted this loco to appear much newer and less worn than the O&K, to reflect the fact it would be about 20 years younger. Still, it can't be shiny on an industrial layout, so the paint was given a good burnish with a fibreglass pencil, then a coat or too of well thinned dirty paint. A dusting of weathering powders and a coat of Testors Dullcote matt varnish finished things off in the usual way.

 

The figure is from S&D and meant as a tractor driver, with legs wide apart. His left arm and head were supplied separate allowing their position to be chosen, but he's still had some serious surgery to bend his right leg in, while his left was amputated at the thigh to twist it to the position seen here.

 

Picking out the control knobs in red helps them be seen - black is more likely though! The epoxy glue knobs have come out very well. I did swap the handbrake (right) and reversing lever (far left) as I thin the instructions have these the wrong way round.

 

Both locos took a little fettling of pickups and body retaining screw tightness (not sure why) to get them running, but now both seem to run well. The O&K has a slight gait and is rather noisy running one way, but seemed to improve with running - I wish I had a continuous run to run them in!