The AndIan Turret Tender - Now in Service

My AndIan Turret Tender has now entered service behind a freshly painted and renumbered 50 class.

My earlier post on the tender (http://philipscreek.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/the-andian-5000-gallon-turret-tender.html) showed the model when most of the basic construction had been completed. A more detailed construction sequence is being posted by Peter Hearsum at http://burrowa.wordpress.com/ as he undertakes a similar project.

Thanks also to AndIan Models for providing some spare ladder sides that allowed me to have a second attempt at the ladder.


Painting was fairly straight forward. Because the locomotive was a metal DJH kit, I was able to strip the existing paint using an acetone based nail polish remover. For plastic kits, I have found the non acetone products work well with less risk of damage to the plastic. It took a few attempts but most of the the surface was back to bare metal. The locomotive and tender were both sprayed with a Floquil weathered black and then a light coat of  Humbrol rust wash. Most of the weathering was completed with an airbrush but some rust powder was used in a few additional places.

All of the tender wheels were fitted with phosphor bronze wipers and a permanent electrical connection has been made to the locomotive. I had intended to fit additional pickups to the locomotive but the chassis configuration seemed to make this difficult with the materials I had to hand. A project for another day!

As an aside, I found it necessary to fit a long shank coupler to prevent buffer lock on some of my tighter curves.



Now, what to do with the old tender? In the short term, I'll probably de-coal it and leave it on a siding. However, if in the long term, I manage to purchase a C30T, it may again be pressed into service.

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.