Scrapheap challenge - part seven

With two of the locos in the above picture completed, I've now moved on to the Duchess and the Castle.

The Duchess was the only locomotive in the box that actually ran (albeit slowly) so only needed a magnet and lube. The Castle was missing a brush arm but after finding spare brush arms in the spares box, this also now runs.

I already own a Bristol Castle and it's fair to say that my existing one is in far better condition. The only option here is to strip to bare metal and repaint.

After removing the handrails, nameplates and reversing rod, the body was ready for stripping.

 Same goes for the Duchess, again way too playworn to be exhibited, this one needs stripping as well.

Just a few minutes later and the handrails and smokebox deflectors are off.

Some chemical assistance again with the stripping. Worthy of note is that the Montrose body ended up in this condition after barely a few minutes:

Whereas to achieve the same results with the Castle took several hours!

With both bodies & tenders stripped, time to prime:

Once dried, I had the GWR green paint ready:

I'll let this harden for a day or so before I mask-up and spray the black bits. At present I don't have the transfers and to do a proper job I need proper transfers and not home-made PC ones.

The plan for the duchess is still to make it into a grey Duchess of Abercorn, just need to find the right shade of grey...