GNAT

Well, I managed to finish (more or less, save for the driver) the Gnat--a Backwoods Miniatures kit: http://www.backwoodsminiatures.com/.  Today was a sweep up day.

I am pretty happy with the Gnat over all, but feel the weathering is a tad heavy--good practice all the same.

The backwoods kit is excellent: the warp in the castings was added by me, and the Bachmann mechanism runs very well.  The only major deviation, save for details, was re-shaping the Bachmann chasis on a belt sander to more closely follow the profile of the Gnat body.

Detail changes included converting it to run on oil--not very prototypical for the kind of loco it is.  I imagined the loco as doing service in my little town of Virgin in the early part of the 20th Century--Oil was found here--thick, difficult to use oil, but it was oil all the same--that, and I could not see any place in the Gnat to add a firebox door. .  .

Heading back downstairs to see what else I can finish up!