Hunslet in 006.5: bodywork...

The minimum gauge 'what if' Hunslet progressed again this evening as I fitted a body to the modified chassis...

I started by marking out some 30thou plasticard with the cab side profile, it's not perfect but I think it's got the flavour of a Hunslet cab opening. I made a pair of these, and checked them against one another for consistency before securing to the model.

The cab front sheet was then made from the original Busch Decauville cab back sheet (!) but cutting down the base, smoothing the side rivets and removing about 0.5mm from the width.

The boiler (just the top of it over the Busch motor block) is 10mm diameter plastic tube section cut to fit. The dome has been started too, this is a smaller diameter plastic rod with a slightly flared base. I created this by pushing the plastic tube down on a heated handle of my craft knife and then smoothing with a file. The side tanks were then filled out with ends, tops and backs, and the cab openings and tank top edges got some plastic strip. On the cab back I added more plastic strip to represent the chassis. The cab roof is from the parts box and is a cut down Meridian Talyllyn coach roof.

Since taking the photos I have added a section to the cut down frames in the cab. Although these looked ok, I felt it made the cab floor too low to be convincing with a driver fitted so I added some floor to raise this up, so say for an well tank... I will be adding more details at the weekend. More soon...