Well Matured

If model railway kits were like wine, then this one would be a vintage port, covered in dust and hiding at the back of your sideboard.

In the late 1990’s, Wrightlines produced kits for Corris / Talyllyn Railway No 4, Kerr Stuart modified Tattoo and then followed it up with a kit for the Skylark, precursor to the Tattoo. I bought both.

A start was made on the Tattoo kit by soldering up the frames and cleaning the castings. But the prospect of the outside Hackworth motion and the arrival of the Skylark brought progress to a halt. The Skylark was the first of the Wrightlines kits to use the latter style milled brass chassis. This coupled with milled rods and lack of outside motion (earlier Kerr Stuart locos had inside Stephenson valve gear between the frames) meant that I built and finished the Skylark. After the second rebuild and upgrading the motor / gearbox  I had a reasonably running loco. But no appetite to attempt the Tattoo.

Twenty five years have passed with me occasionally opening the box, fettling some parts and then putting it away again. Finding a decent motorising option that could fit within the constraints of the firebox and pony truck arrangement eluded me and there was still that outside motion to fear.

The motorising conundrum was solved by EDM Models developing their Skylark drive and I was fast running out of excuses, with this being an ideal loco to run on Wheal Ponder.

In early October, my thoughts were on embarking on building another layout, but the mojo for this disappeared. Then I was looking around for a desk based project one Trent Valley Zoom evening when the Tattoo kit caught my eye and I gave myself a ‘just on with it’ talking too.

It took a little while to get my head back around working with white metal again after many years, but with my soldering iron woken from its slumbers I’ve been slowly getting on with the kit through November and into December around busy family and work schedules.

The build has mainly followed the kit’s instructions save for two areas. Firstly the pony truck springing arrangement had been replaced with the same springy phosphor bronze solution I’ve found successful in both my 7mm and 16mm scale Skylark builds.

The second has been some modifications to the footplate casting and rear frame stretcher to fit the Skylark drive in and repositioning of the rear securing bolt.

The main sub assemblies are built up and ready to go. Next step is to start assembling the chassis, which will be painted as I go so keep your fingers crossed that I emerge out the other side with a nicely working chassis.