This Fowler is a very early model from the early 1990's and came as a low mileage, second-hand purchase. It was complete with 27 mhz radio control, which turned out to be excellent, and glitch free, but this has now been replaced with one of the budget, Chinese 2.4 ghz systems which took all of 5 minutes to install. As purchased, the loco was completely silent, other than a rather noisy (pre-FG) burner. A Summerlands Chuffer was fitted (describe in detail on the SC website) and the burner was wrapped in fine nichrome mesh (stainless will do). It is now the loudest Chuffer on the line!  Four simple external modifications were to spray the smoke-box matt black (Halfords Acrylic), to re-spray the rather tatty cylinders and the cab roof, satin black (Halford Acrylic again), and to drill out the large, white painted "lense" on the lamp and fill it with clear epoxy resin.  As supplied, the tender was fitted with a resin casting to represent the coal and the water filler. The radio ariel was fitted to the underneath of this.  As the ariel was no longer needed, I decided to make a replacement tender top from a piece of ply and some brass. I turned the tank filler from brass and used anthracite grains fixed with dilute PVA glue.  Fireman Eric looks a bit worried about the size of the coal - so I might add some more small stuff! This tender top could be made from all plywood and a suitable bottle cap to achieve a similar effect. I sprayed all satin black and then put cling film under and round it before replacing it in the tender, then adding the coal and pouring on the glue. After a few hours, when it had begun to set, I lifted it carefully (with the cling film still wrapped round) out of the tender and got rid of the extra glue solution that had been held by the cling film (and yes it was messy!). After carefully drying the bottom, I put it by a radiator to harden over night. |
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