One of the easiest ways to start in gauge 1 is to use the really versatile Playmobile power unit as a mechanism to scratbuild on. There used to be a couple of vacuum formed plastic body kits you could get to fit one of which was the LNER Sentinel 0-4-0VB shunter. This was a vertical boiler, chain drive loco that was very popular in industrial use. I scratchbuilt one for a mate in Nickel Silver basically a simple box, I modelled the boiler from a piece of copper tube. The doors were hinged and opened Not quite finished but on test on Mardy Colliery you can see I retained the additional centre plunger pick up on the playmobile chassis to help pick up current on Mark's garden layout. The prototype, relegated to departmental use, in a pic taken by my father. It was only when I looked at this picture tonight I spotted all the rivets that aren't on the drawing I used. Mark never noticed them missing anyway Kev
Well all this rambling on about my gauge 1 days has prompted me to finish the other Austerity 0-6-0ST. I've put the Z gauge on hold and spent some time in the loft finding the bits that were scattered around. Found nearly everything apart from one coupling rod but then found the pattern I used to make them on the pantograph engraver so I can mill another set out. The firebox backhead is around some where as I've seen it recently The two plates with holes are the motion brackets for the inside valve gear. The strange things behind are another lost project that will now come to fruition, They are some etched brass frets to make the LMS/BR 20T Coke hopper. I have two of these, the frets were done by a mate Peter Prydderch and date back to 1990, that's how long they've been up there! There are a lot of rivets to push through on these but rivet counters will be welcome as they are ALL there. Kev
