Bagnall and Kerr Stuart completed

Both the Narrow Planet little Bagnall kit and the Paul Windle Kerr Stuart refurbishment are now finished. I decided to break out the airbrush using Vallejo mid green, of course I had to clean the airbrush before use as my previous clean clearly wasn't good enough. I struggled to get a good finish to start with so the first coat was perhaps a little orange-peely, but in the end got a reasonable finish. 

Black was also Vallejo acrylic but brush painted, the red buffer beams used cheap artists acrylic - a terrible idea, couldn't get a good finish, will keep those for scenic work only I think! Detail painting was with enamels as I have a bigger selection of colours. A well-thinned enamel wash was used for weathering, aiming for an oily clean finish that could reflect a well used but cared for loco in industrial use or even preservation, neither prisine nor decreptit, supported by some subtle weathering powder for coal dust and ash. Finally, a coat of Testors Dullcote toned the lot down. The Bagnall cylinders looka little shiny not having been Dullcoted. 

I'd wondered how to fix the Bagnall to its chassis, then noticed the keeper plate protrudes past the rear of the chassis block and had a screw hole, presumably to fix the original body. Of course, this keeper plate blocked the hole I needed to screw the coupling in, and the hole in the keeper plate was in the wrong place. A few moments with a burr in the dremel opened the hole out rearwards along with a countersink, allowing the Microtrains screw to pass through the keeper plate, body, coupling, and into the body again, securing them all together. 

The loco is tiny, so the crew were recuited from the HO scale Faller truck drivers pack - and still don't really fit, although a cab full of motor is forcing them half out the doorways anyway. The drinks can roof is suitably thin and doesn't look like a replacement, but I can see paint wearing off the brass steps pretty soon! A little coal in the bunker and glazing in the window and she is ready to go. 

A superb slow runner, she looks right at home on Loctern Quay where I expect she'll take up shunter duties, today I've been "testing" it including for reliable coupling operation. 

The Kerr Stuart Haig crew are from the Dapol recruitment agency. Not sure where the bits on the side tanks came from, amazing what shows up in a photograph. In the flesh, the new paint job has really tidied up the tatty body, and I think the green looks better than the black. 

Once warm the running is fair, but not as good as the looks sadly, with both surging related to the motor mount, and a tendency to stall which may be failings in the pick-ups or the wobbly wheels due to the stub axles. I expect it will see duty on Slugworth and perhaps Hexworthy but not Loctern Quay, which is why I didn't bother to change the couplings. Maybe one day I'll have a brainwave of how to improve the motor mount and pick-ups, but for £5 and a little work I'm pretty pleased!