A Card model of a drop centre in "O" scale part 2

I have yet to paint the body shell of my model but the big thing for me is I have my new airbrush working now and I have been experimenting with acrylics. I had real difficulty handling acrylics with my old airbrush. The results with the new brush are so good this tram will be painted entirely in acrylics. But more of that in a future post.

Supplied with the Transit Classics FM kit I built recently was a set of brass castings for the controller, airbrake and handbrake fittings. I felt these were a waste putting them into the FM as they wouldn't be seen. So I decided I would use them for my drop centre model which has a fairly open cab. Some modification was necessary as the air brake unit in the FMs is simply screwed to the tapering side wall with the air pipes exposed. In the drop centres the air pipes are enclosed in a tube which also becomes a pedestal to hold the main unit as shown in the cab photo of 341 above. I managed to get something that looks reasonable by soldering the handbrake unit to a length of brass tube

I also needed to put a larger plinth under the controller which I did with a piece of styrene. The parts as supplied didn't have the bracket to hold the handbrake mechanism away from the front wall and these were made out of some spare brass wire.

Again I haven't gone for 100% accuracy but have tried to achieve something that looks the part.