Saturday, October 27, 2007

Handrails


jinty handrail
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.
It’s always a good idea to take a proper look at the prototype of any model you are building. If I had, then I wouldn’t have put off adding the handrails to the Jinty for so long.

The trouble is on most steam locos, handrails are a right royal pain. Get them even slightly wonky and you ruin the model. Just to help the designers include a curved rail that wraps around the front of the smokebox and down the sides of the boiler. Of course this has to go on as a single item which means odd shapes to bend – and if you get them wrong too many times the wire is kinkier than a fetish club convention.

So, hooray for the Jinty ! The handrails go nowhere near the front. Instead they are nice simple straight lines in the sides, tanks fronts and in the cab door. The later went in as part of the beading process as the tops are soldered to this. The others fixed in place pretty quickly with hot iron and lots of flux.

Unusually for 3mm scale, none of the holes in the handrail knobs needed enlarging. If the has proper formed bases to space the rail from the bodywork, things would have been perfect. I only dropped one and lot it too so I have a single spare left. Now I wonder where I can put this so it’s found next time I build a kit…

No comments: