Commission: Petunia in 7/8ths...

Based upon a wonderfully creative illustration by Peter Barnfield in the 'Steam in the Kitchen' book, this large scale (circa 1:12) model has been built for a customer interested in less serious side of the garden hobby...

The model is built upon an Essel Engineering 0-4-0 diesel chassis, and fitted with Deltang RC and myLocosound steam sound. The batteries are stowed in the boiler, with a removable door, and the radio in a push fit side tank...

The look was created from upscaling one of Peter's drawings and adjusting to work with components sourced from Model-earth, the Talisman castings allowing a lot of shortcutting with smokebox door, chimney, dome, clacks, water filler lids etc... The rest however had to be scratch built, although the cab, which is removable, was drawn and laser cut to get the distinctive side profile...

The colour will divide opinion, but we got there in the end, it's a Humbrol gloss colour, lined with crimson. It looks better in the flesh, and is finished off nicely with the custom Narrow Planet etched nameplates...

The model is very very lightly weathered, with some dry brushed gun metal which brings out the edges of the model. It's a smooth and powerful runner, although the gear box in the Essel chassis is a little loud. The steam sound is sync'd to the wheel rotation and back EMF so is not too bad, but obviously not a real steam engine - however this suited my customers requirements.

It's been a really tough one to build - to try and get the caricature style whilst having something believable and that would work - I've included some rudimentary detail on the back head, in a caricature style, but that would work... and I've re-vised some of the sketch to be more believable. The vertical stretch is most obvious from the side and then end on, otherwise it's just a tall Dolgoch!

It's been good fun all the same, and hopefully some more peculiar projects will follow in the future. In the meantime, if you've got a project in mind, any scale, gauge, prototype and level of whimsy, get in touch for a personal proposal through the website, Facebook or a forum. More soon...