Back in 2017 I built a Connoisseur J79 which was painted in early 2018 and then after some test running it sat in my cabinet with occasional trips out on my demo stand. Somewhere along the line I managed to get a large chunk of paint removed from the bunker. I may have attempted to patch paint this but I also noticed that somehow when fitted the backhead had slipped and moved off centre.

This was one of those thigs that despite being in the enclosed cab one I had seen it I couldn’t unsee it and it started to bug me. I popped it in a box on a shelf and tried to ignore it but eventually I decided to take the plunge and strip the paint of it.

Just a reminder of what it looked like in January 2018

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and we have this.

You will note in all the photos above that there is an infilled section under the boiler behind the smokebox. I didn’t notice this when building and only noted it when I had got it all assembled. Now having stripped all the paint off I took the plunge and cut that infilled section out and I have to say that the loco looks much the better for having it removed.

You will also note that there have been a couple of casualites during the paint strippoing process – One of the cab steps broke off, one of the cab handrails came adrift and I removed and stripped the backhead. I also managed to lose completely the curved handrail from the smoke box door.