OK, I am slowly progressing with my quest for a HOn30 “Class A” Shay. As mentioned in my previous post, I will try to kitbash one myself … with a couple of pictures from a Japanese modeler as my main example …
Fortunately I had a bit of luck on eBay last week and won the bid for a couple of bodies of the N-scale Shay made by Atlas. They will allow me to mess around a bit, without destroying a complete Shay …
I compared the body to a drawing of one of the Mapleton Shays and must confess that it looks very promising. The length is almost an exact match and the size of the boiler is also quite good … the shape is a bit different though.
The body of the Atlas Shay has a couple of big advantages however.
- The cab and oil bunker are separate parts and can be removed without a problem.
- The other scale sensitive items like the smoke stack, bell and whistle are also separate parts that can be removed.
This means that I can use the body and that it becomes a good base for a HOn30 model, with a couple of minor adjustments. Only the headlight and the pilot steps on the headstock beam need to be milled off.
So that needs to become my next step … and I need to start thinking about the materials to use for the kitbash. Styrene, brass or maybe I could have the parts printed by a 3D-printing service?