I've completed most of the 'structural' work on the blue Dapol Class 22 now, with the exception of glueing the lifting rings on the bogies. Having run it this evening with some wagons, I think that I'm going to have to replace the Dapol coupling hook with a Smiths one, to standardise it with the rest of my rolling stock.

After having done the basic chassis conversion using the Ultrascale wheels, as described in the earlier blog entry, I decided to put a driver in each cab and do something about the loose valences, which I glued to the body with MekPak, using some 10 thou plasticard inside the body to (i) line the valences up with the outside face of the main loco body and (ii) link the valences to each other, to provide some structural strength.

I also put most of the buffer beam detailing on, but felt that the vacuum pipe supplied was a bit too thin, so fitted something a bit thicker.

The cab units do come out, but mine needed a little gentle persuasion to seperate the cab unit from the main loco body (it seemed to be secured with the grey paint used on the cab units, perhaps they are inserted into the loco bodies by some automated process when the grey paint is still wet?). Anyway, the driver as seen in this photo turned out to be far too tall when inside the loco, so had to have even more of his torso ruthlessly snipped off...

The valences glued in place along one side, with the 10 thou plasticard strengthening pieces apparent:

I think that the general quality of the plastic mouldings is excellent, especially the lamp brackets and the very small handrails (other manufacturers could take a leaf out of Dapol's book when it comes to the small handrails on the front ends of diesels). The headcodes are from a Heljan Hymek:

Buffer beam detail going on:

The cab units were then lightly glued back into the loco bodies (having had some material removed earlier to make them an easier fit), with a small dab of MekPak, and the loco body refitted to the chassis. I then gave it a bit of a run on Callow Lane, shunting some wagons in the company of D6347 (SIlver Fox):