Thursday 23 January 2014

The AndIan 5000 Gallon Turret Tender - A Work in Progress

Santa Claus very kindly left one the new AndIan 5000 Gallon Turret Tender kits for me under the Christmas tree this year. Well actually, the wife grabbed it when it arrived in early December and it didn't reappear until Christmas Day.

This is a very detailed  but, at the same time, a very delicate kit. It requires a level of soldering skill that probably exceeds mine to construct the model exactly as per the instructions. However, to date and, fingers crossed, I have only made a few small errors that compromised the etching detail. Once painted, hopefully, these will only be apparent if someone starts to count rivets on the chassis. However, I confess to resorting to superglue to fix some of the smaller less critical detail items.

It is a work in progress and there is still a long way to go but the major elements of the tender have been completed. The instructions have been helpful and I generally followed the sequence. However, I have left some external items to be installed when everything else is completed. A CD with prototype and construction sequence photos is included in the kit and these have been very useful during the construction.

There have been a few challenges during the construction to date. Despite the warnings in the instruction, I stuffed up the construction of the ladder. I was able to fabricate a replacement using the kit's side runners and a Uneek ladder. I also struggled with the fitting of some bronze castings.

The kit allows for the fitting of a speaker and sound decoder. I don't intend to utilise this capability but will fit pickups to all of the tender wheels and upgrade the pickups on the 50 class.

I also plan to strip back the 50 class and repaint it in conjunction with the tender. The locomotive will be renumbered as one that operated in the upper Hunter in the last years of steam. (note this paragraph has been edited to remove the inaccuracy highlighted in Phil Collin's comment below.















4 comments:

  1. Philip, Can I suggest that you select another locomotive number other than 5132 as the tender in the photo is a "Morts Dock " tender on a Everleigh underframe. Refer my article in AMRM many years ago. The Andian model is a Commonwealth Turret tender which is a different design to the Morts that was fitted behind 5132 in its later years.
    Regards,
    Phil Collins

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    1. Phil,

      Woops! Many thanks for your comment and correction. As I wipe the egg off my face, I am searching the index of AMRM and will reread your article. At least it's much easier to amend the intent rather than the actual.

      Thanks again
      Phil

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  2. Hi Phil,
    Firstly, congrats for having a go. I know there are alot of good modellers out there who are afraid to build our kits. Some opt to have others build the kits for them. Its kits like this that make a good modeller excellent. Your tender is looking the part and I'm sure will look really good once finished. I would like to see the finished product.
    We do have some sample etches if you want the correct tender ladder styles.

    Great work.
    Ian

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    1. Ian,

      Thanks for your comments. Progress has been slow, but it is getting there. I am now working on electrical contacts for the wheels.

      For me the challenge is that the last metal kit that I built was completed some time ago and one tends to lose some of the skills, and it takes a while to relearn them.

      I am interested in the possibility of redoing the ladder and will contact you separately on the Andian email to discuss.

      cheers Phil

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