Faur L18H in 009: testing testing...

Last year I mentioned the idea of doing a Faur L18H in 009 - and had contemplated building one myself in styrene with some etched overlays. Well now I'm involved with Narrow Planet I suggested the design to Steve and with the readily available Graham Farish 08 chassis a plan was hatched...

Today the parts arrived from the test print and test etch and I'm sorry there isn't a before photo! I was too excited to put it together. This is the result of an hour with just simple hand tools and superglue. Yes there are a few issues with the test etch parts, and a minor correction to the mounting screw holes in the 3D print, but otherwise it went together well.

The 'prime grey' material from iMaterialise is a lovely material to work with - very smooth and of good quality with minimal legacy layering visible - mind there isn't much visible with the etched parts added!

I started by supergluing the doors to the bonnet - this was very straight forward. Next the cab was folded up using a Hold and Fold - we'll etch the production kits in thinner material as this proved to be quite tricky around the thin window pillars. This was then superglued to the 3D print. The bonnet top cover edges were rolled with the aid of a file handle before they were superglued to the 3D print. Then the buffer beams were added and finally the sand box hatches.

Eagle eyed viewers will notice the lack of a front grill - this is yet to be designed. You'll also notice the roof is only placed on at present. If I were building this for a real model I would solder up the cab and solder on the roof to make it easier to fill the small gap - but that would make glazing quite difficult so it's going to be one to ponder when we write up the instructions. You'll also notice the handrails on the cab aren't present in this test etch - we have a cunning plan for these!

I was interested to see how it measured up to my scratch build Romanian Krauss - so you can see it's not a massive locomotive, and one that in real life is full of character.

So a few minor tweaks and an opportunity for a few extra details, but as a first test - it passed with flying colours! More soon...