"Doing up a Hornby B12"

Last week I wrote a blog which showed how I modified an old Hornby B12 to look a little more like a B12. I wasn't satisfied with it over the weekend, so stripped it down today, and started again this morning:



I totally stripped the front bufferbeam after discovering a set of brass LNER buffers in the spare parts drawer. Finally, the moulded (and inherently bad) Hornby ones could be dispensed with, along with my plasticard guard irons (which I was not overly happy with). I drilled an extra hole so that the B12 could be dual braked (as 61572 and its classmates were, in service in the late 50s).

Using the following tools: scalpel, stanley knife, various files, wet'n'dry paper and a lot of elbow grease, I removed the moulded on outside steam pipes. The B12 I am depicting, 61572, doesn't have these (nor has had these since its rebuild into a B12/3), so these disappeared along with various moulded on pipes, which I duly replaced with wire versions:



I added a new set of guard irons to the front bufferbeam. These were made using scrap metal (thin aluminium), and cut to shape and size. At the same time, I also fitted a more realistic hook, the brass LNER buffers, and both brake pipes:



I had also made a modification that had been annoying me for some time on the Hornby B12s:



At the front of every B12 chassis is a chassis extension which plugs itself into the front of the B12's smokebox, coming out just below the smokebox door, and sticking itself outside the bodyshell, normally. This was wholly unrealistic, and with that, I removed the chassis extension. What I replaced it with, is nothing more than a bent piece of metal - specifically, that which holds in place a super detail Hornby model in its packaging, nowadays. This allowed the bodyshell to sit at the preferred height without having a bit of the chassis poking out the front. I filled in the gaping hole using Gamesworkshop moulding putty.



I then turned my attention to the underside of the bodyshell. The frames have never exactly looked great, so I added some plasticard extensions to try and close the gap between bodyshell and bogie wheels:



I then white-tacked up the nameplate, and covered the rest of the loco body, to spray the front of the bodyshell in Gamesworkshop "Chaos Black":



I left it to dry for four hours, and then set about painting the front, using my usual acrylics:



Not bad for an afternoon's work!



Until next time.