Planet Industrials: the last Steam Sentinel…

Ever since I came across photos of the prototype at the Dormon Long steel works I was curiously drawn to the last steam sentinels. These heavy oil burning powerful, heavy but slow steam behemoths were the last hurrah of the concept before the adoption of a Rolls Royce engine and hydraulic transmission…

Planet Industrials kits are always designed to entice the modeller away from ready to run and ‘have a go’ and making something. The cab conversions were the quintessential ‘easy’ project but even the Hibberd with its custom chassis was designed to assemble easily without expensive tools or complex skills.

This latest design is the same ethos - taking a Hornby 0-6-0 Sentinel and removing 4 screws leaves you the chassis and drive that then is simply fitted under a brass footplate, to which various pieces are attached using either solder or superglue. Up top, a 3D core, largely featureless to allow the surface to be prepared and smoothed easily, has a series of etched panels and details added - plus some handrails - and this slots over the chassis.

The cab doors can be modelled open, closed or a combination with the various etched doors included on the fret. Two buffer beams are provided too, to allow a standard NEM coupling to be fitted, or, as here, a 3 link. My prototype has RT buffers, but the design would allow sprung Alan Gibson industrial buffers to be fitted.

The model is to scale, but I’ve taken a few liberties with the design to create a ‘what if’ generic model with the low cab and simpler steps - and I haven’t included overlays for the fly cranks as these were fitted later for the Dormon Long examples, I think… as I say the kit is designed to be straight forward to assemble and give the modeller something unique.

Under the long hood is space for plenty of weight, or a decoder, stay alive and speaker.

I will have this prototype with me on display at Narrow Gauge South this weekend at Eastleigh. I will then be painting it up and we’ll open pre-orders for the kit which will be the same as recent previous models - prepared to satisfy demand, so if you want one you’ll need to pre-order. Price tbc, circa £50 I’d expect. Perhaps I’ll see you on Saturday?

Until next time though, more soon…

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