Come on Ingerlaaaand

3rd Barclay Bonnet
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Vindaloo, Vindaloo, We’re going to smash the Argies etc. etc.

While the rest of the country watched a nail biting England match against the greatest team ever to kick a ball, I was slaving over a hot soldering iron to get the HO Barclay together.

OK, I don’t do football and it was too hot outside. I like modelling with windows open on a warm day, gentle breeze blowing. There’s no reason it has to be a winter activity. The light is better for a start.

Since this is the third bonnet I’ve built I finally got it right first time. The metal was annealed and then bent (as per the instructions). The ends fitted pretty well and once I’d soldered them in it was still flat and square.

Learning from past problems I decided to fit the handrails before attaching the bonnet to the footplate. The horizontal ones were easy once the holes were eased a little. Lots of flux and tiny amounts of solder on the handrail knobs. Plenty of solder inside the bonnet to hold them in.

Bonnet handles are just a pain. However I a cunning method made things easier.

The wire supplied was chopped into two lengths. Each of these was bent over at the end and this pushed through the holes. A chopped down business card tucked under the wires and then was gripped in my fingers using a wooden chip fork to stop me getting burnt. Imagine from the top – fingers, fork, wire, card, bonnet.

Soldering was carried out from the inside so I could be messy without anything showing. Two handles were done at a time. Once the solder had cooled I snipped the handles to length – this means that all end up the same – hooray ! No fiddling around with short lengths of wire either. The are long enough to handle until the final snip. Verticalness (is that a word ?) was easy as well. Gentle tugging the wires achieved this before snipping.

I wonder if I can get a St George’s flag in HO ?