5" NWNG Gowrie
Built by John Martin.
We were extremely pleased to get this model. A 5" gauge model of the North Wales Narrow Gauge Hunslet single Fairlie 'Gowrie'. There's a couple of photos below to show how the model was originally finished by John.
Thanks to a collection of photographs taken by the builder during the build process of the model we have some great images of how it was all made. The first three photos here show the beginnings of the loco in 1994.
The boiler too was one of the first things that John tackled back in 1994. As you can see he did a nice job of it, silver soldering up all the flanged and formed copper plate work.
The build continued through 1995 when he made the bunker and cab rear, right through until the last two photos below here which were taken in 1996 and 1998 respectively, you can see that the cylinders and valve gear were essentially a 2 year process.
The finishing was done over the following couple of years,......
And the loco was ultimately finished and ready for exhibition and use by the year 2000. The builder John Martin is seen here below driving the model at his local model engineering club track.
Sadly John passed away, and the model subsequently passed to us here at The Seam Workshop. Mechanically it was in really good condition. John had made everything well and looked after it too, but as the photographs show, the paint work had always been a little plain and basic. Because it was such an interesting and probably unique model, certainly in 5" gauge, we decided that it was both worthy of a full re-paint, and while we were at it we should take the opportunity to add the bit of extra detail that we think the model really deserved.
The Re-build!
Hopefully we will upload a few pics of the process here in due course, but for now, have a look at the end result.
