First..I have decided to paint mine. I know all those shiny brass bits are impressive, but I'd like it to look like the real one. Hope to have the first package by weekend...in the meantime I've been getting together my painting supplies. Badger seems to be the way to for air brushing. They have a wide selection of railroad colours.
I also have a subscription to the Senna McLaren so I can play with those bits in between the loco assembly stages.

Hi Gary
Looks like a plan there , one word of advice though the airbrush is it powered by aerosol propellant as the problem they don't tell you is as the propellant runs out the pressure drops and thus makes spraying harder. That's why a good compressor is a must for air-brushing

Regards
Andy

I was in a bit of a panic this morning. I thought I had bought a couple of good sets of small screwdrivers....but neglected to see if they actually fit the heads of the screws. I had applied 30 minute epoxy to the ring and inserted it only to find I couldn't drive the screws in. I finally found one that is used for eyeglass screws...before the epoxy started to set!!!

Apologies....I have been forgetting to resize my photos before uploading....I realized that was why they don't show directly. I'll try to remember in later posts.

I had thought of that, but then I would have to keep fiddling with my camera settings. Pity the edit feature doesn't seem to let one go back in and edit the images.

All done with 1 thru 8. I painted the spark arrestor before installing, later I'll shoot some more flat black inside. The red stripes on the feedwater tank are masking tape so it will have brass bands on there when it's done. I've noticed that quite a few tanks on the D51 have these brass bands.

Hi Gary
Looking great and very neat work
regards
Andy

Pack #2 done. I did some prepainting prior to assembly.

Very nice finish on that paint, looking good
Steve

very tasty, well done.

Looking great Gary