Head scratching time. The handrails on a Class 14 diesel are weird. Basically they are a flat strip that runs around the edge of the bonnet. Quite why the ex-GWR workshop went for these I don’t know, but it’s bad news for modellers. We know how to do conventional rails, how are these supposed to work ?
In the 7mm scale version of the kit, builders fit short handrail knobs and then solder the flat strip provided to the tops. With a bit of excess solder you won’t spot the subdefuge.
In 4mm this won’t work as the supports will be too think. After a little discussion the plan was to drill holes in the strip. Short lengths of wire are then soldered in and the result clipped in place through the suppled holes in the bonnets.
That’s what I did for the short end. Blimey that nickel silver is hard. I chewed through several drill bits and even when I finished there was a problem with the holes lining up.
For the long end I tried something that shouldn’t work. The short lengths of wire were soldered to the bonnet. Then, using a ruler as a thickness guide, they were all snipped to the same length. Finally the strip was soldered to the ends of the wire.
I suspect this works because I was quick with the iron and the solder stick strip to wire before the solder holding the wire to the bonnet had time to heat up and melt.
The results from both methods are suprisingly strong. I filed things clean without any breakage. In future I’ll use the second method but if you were better at measuring and drilling than I am, the first will work OK.
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