To continue our celebration of Hornby’s 100th anniversary, TIM SHACKLETON looks to push detail further using quality aftermarket components and simple, easy-to-learn skills. Here he shows what you can do with a Hornby ‘8F’ and ‘Patriot’ to improve these under-rated Hornby ‘OO’ gauge locomotives.
AN AREA OF MODELLING expertise that, outside hardcore finescale circles, seems to attract few takers nowadays is detailing and improving ready-to-run models. To be fair, the quality is generally so high that any kind of intervention is unnecessary. Undertaking wholesale conversions from one class or sub-class to another – steam as well as diesel – seems even less of an option, though at one time the popular magazines were full of these magical cut-andshut transformations – a Tri-ang ‘Princess’ turned into a ‘Black Five’, a ‘56XX’ 0-6-2T fashioned out of a Hornby-Dublo ‘R1’ 0-6-0T chassis and a Kitmaster ‘Prairie’ tank. I cut my finescale teeth on this kind of work, and yet I look at many of today’s products – the Hornby Pecketts, Hatton’s ‘66’ and Dapol ‘68’ come immediately to mind – and don’t see a single solitary thing that needs doing to them.
Above: Good basic models such as Hornby’s 8F and rebuilt ‘…
