Saturday was spent prepping the wheels, giving them initial coat of paint and then using the quartering too to mount them in the bearings and the axle muff.
The coupling rods were soldered up from those on the old faithful 3-205 etch, which despite being designed for the old Poole Era Farish/Ballantine Wheels was still an exact fit. These are, in my view, more robust than the more recent Jinty coupling rods designed around the current Farish Jinty loco. That said, I did use the 4F balance weights from the more recent etch.
After discovering I'd got some of the wheels mixed up between the leading and middle axles I was able, by early Saturday evening, to have it up and running on the rolling road -
A bit of running in confirmed that the basics were OK and the quartering was pretty much spot on for once!
So, when the inevitable rainy Bank Holiday Monday came, I soldered on the crankpin washers and cut them down to size, and this is how it looks so far on my test plank -
It's still in MR livery pretty much as it came from Farish, so it will be probably renumbered to LMS 3842, a loco shedded at Buxton though I imagine it'll be used to help to fill a current gap for LMS 0-6-0s on Lightcliffe so that number isn't finalised as yet.
A much quicker conversion was for a blue Farish Class 40 - much simpler with 3-308 16t geared 7.5mm wheelsets for the driven axles and a pair of the new 3-313 6mm/1.5mm axles for the pony truck axles. Dead quick to do and it works a treat!
This will be staying as 40 012 Aureol, as it was towards the end of it's life in the early 80s but before it was renumbered to a 97/4 for the Crewe remodelling works, this does mean that I'll have to fill in the slots in the nose for mounting the headcode disks as I've not been able to find any pictures so far of it with the numbers painted on the nose and the discs still mounted. It'll also need the wheels painting black and a some appropriate weathering.
