North British Railway class H Atlantic no. 881 Borderer. Built from the Ace Model Products kit by Mike Williams and this is what he has to say about the build and the kit on his website……..“North British Railway Atlantic by ACE Products. I was asked to build 2 of these locos, one as North British circa 1918 and the other as LNER circa 1932. I elected to build them together. The tenders were built first, using split axles, uninsulated wheels and a perspex block isolating the frames. There was no information on the tender parts regarding tool boxes, water gauge, hand brake, etc. this had to be sourced from elsewhere.The loco frames were made up and the driving wheels added to check for square, so far so good! I then added the trailing wheels. Even with the elongated slot the wheels were 5 mm above the rail head. was this deliberate? A cunning NBR plan to transfer weight to the coupled wheels? No – just another problem to sort out. That is how the build went on, problem after problem. Some easy to solve, others more difficult. The instructions are poor, with wrong information and page 3 doesn’t even apply to the NBR Atlantic! I had to replace some of the etches, firebox and smoke box. On the tender axle box castings the spring wasn’t in line with the box and had to be cut apart and fitted separately. Parts of the build – the distinctive lubricator and the trailing axle brake gear are not even mentioned in the paperwork. These had to be scratch built.This kit is very difficult to build, particularly in respect of the amount that has to be scratch built. It is not a good advert for the ACE brand”.
What I can add is that even though the kit and the build has caused Mike massive problems, he has made a superb job. He has fitted an ABC motor and gear unit, which allows the model to run very freely and smoothly. Expertly painted by Paul Moore. See more photos of this model and more of Paul’s work on the 62C Models website, or on Paul’s flicker page.
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