And now for something completely different. NOW with added buildy bits!

1
December 14, 2019
No teddy bears were harmed in the making of the steam (sorry, that's a lie).
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December 14, 2019
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December 14, 2019
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December 14, 2019
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December 14, 2019
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December 14, 2019
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December 14, 2019
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December 14, 2019
Coal shovel, or as I like to call it “the fuel injection system”.
9
December 14, 2019
Plenty of bone-mangling action. Elf and safely wasn't really a thing in 1870.
10
December 14, 2019
The original engraving that started the trouble.
11
April 10, 2026
As usual I'll tackle what I've decided will the most complicated bit first (before discovering that most of the rest of the model is even more complicated).
I started with the gears, although to be honest, I'm not sure how much of them will be visible on the completed model. Scaled to the correct size in Inkscape, print off, cut out and glue on to plastic card with white glue.
12
April 10, 2026
Top tip!
You need to go out to your woodwork workshop in the garden and in the fourth drawer down in the
tool chest, at the back you'll see your Robert Sorby wood carving gouges. Choose the one that exactly matches the radius of the inner wheel rim….. What? What do you mean you haven't got a workshop in the garden? Well that's hardly my fault is it!
Using the gouges and a varied multitude of tools I removed the bits that are non-gear and voila, I was left with a toothless gear. A gummy-gear? No, I think you'll find that it's called a bloody wheel.
13
April 10, 2026
Trying to cut the gears by eye was a disaster (stupid idea, eyes are much too soft to cut plastic) the teeth looked like the work of a 14th century blind dentist. Even marking them with a pencil was futile as the file kept slipping on the convex surface. My JLC razor saw came to the rescue. I used a bit of 1mm thick styrene as a spacer between two blades. One of the blades was set higher than the other so that when one blade had sawn down to the correct depth, the other blade just scored where the next cut would be – then move the saw along one space. This gave a key for the file to get a decent grip……
14
April 10, 2026
This diagram should help the hard-of-thinking.
15
April 10, 2026
Nearly three bloody hours it took to make this thing!
By now you may have gathered that I'm not building a Spitfire.
16
April 10, 2026
The next gear probably wouldn't have taken as long but I still hoped for a short cut. I like to try new things with each build and I decided to have a go at casting the remaining gears in resin. A friend suggested using Alumilite resin and after several eternitys it arrived from darkest Yankshire. The kettle went on for a cuppa and for a mug of boiling water to melt some Oyumaru to make the moulds. I wasn't convinced that all the detail of the gears had been reproduced in the moulds but I decided to risk it anyway – cus that's the kinda guy I am (too tight to buy silicone type of guy). God the resin smells BAD. Even with my extractor sucking for all it's worth, the smell was overpowering. The reek makes the day after a particularly caustic curry seem like a fragrant scented summer breeze in comparison. Just as well we don't have canaries, otherwise we would be holding a series of very small funerals. I dumped it in the shed in the hope that we're not talking nuclear half life time scales before it would be approachable.
Fear kept me away from the shed for two days, by which time almost all the awful whiff had gone.* They came out of the mould easily and this is how they were before being cleaned up. Unfortunately now my Oyumaru smells disgusting.

* Two weeks later the smell is only noticeable if you hold the part to your nose and inhale deeply. But what sort of deranged idiot would do that? 😳
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April 10, 2026
The Alumilite is a little bendy but very tough. It sands and files quite easily, but the clean-up isn't easy on such small intricate parts. This is the medium sized gear (13mm diameter) after being tided up.
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April 10, 2026
The small 6mm gears didn't cast well. I wasted more time trying to make them acceptable than it would have taken to make them in plastic. I gave up on them and did what I should have done to start with.
19
April 10, 2026
This is how they all turned out.
The two larger sizes did pass quality control – not perfect, but they'll do. As you can see, I've done a bit more than just the gears.
Definitely not a Spitfire….maybe a Hurricane?
20
April 10, 2026
Mrs Gorby is getting suspicious as to where all the lids are going. She's developing a haunted look, so I needed to find a good (easy) way of making reasonably accurate cylinders/tubes. The lids I originally pinched for the two main wheels turned out to be unsuitable – the plastic was too thin and poor quality. Fortunately, along came a brain wave of truly tsunami proportions (although in hindsight it was more like a ripple that'd be unlikely to make an ant loose it's balance). Remember back when we were at primary school learning about dinosaurs and other current events? We used to use scissors to curl paper and stick them to other bits of curled paper for our parents to throw in the bin when we got home. Using the same method 0.25mm styrene curls very easily (I used the brass rods as I'm more likely to injure myself with scissors than when I was five).
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April 10, 2026
0.5mm was a bit more effort (using the back of a scalpel blade) but still worked well.
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April 10, 2026
0.75mm was equally successful but required a stronger device (the gouge/chisel).
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April 10, 2026
Even when I trained as a draughtsman I rarely used pi. I've used it more on my last three scratch-builds than since I left school. It's almost as if it was worth going to school. Not a lot of my education seems to have stuck, but is it my fault if I haven't got a sticky brain? Rather than use the currently known 31 trillion digits of pi, 3.142 was close enough to find the length of the side walls then a narrower tab was glued to the inside so that when the full circle was done the front and back face could slot inside using the inner tab as a stop/spacer. I didn't take any photos of the assembly as I'm giving you credit to be able to understand written instructions (okay, I forgot to take photos).
The single small wheel started it's modelling career as a Micro Sol lid. Little did it know when it was young that one day it would be discovered and go on to achieve great things. Unfortunately it got that wrong, as I chopped half it's body away drilled holes in it and hid it's natural beauty behind layers of plastic. Originally I'd used double sided tape for the rivety edge (as in my A7V build) but it wasn't up to the job. I had to apply super glue to it as you would normally use Tamiya Extra thin. Bit messy, but worked well.
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April 10, 2026
The wheels temporarily in place.
The lump in the middle of the ‘deck’ is water...to see if it’s level.
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April 10, 2026
The thing I thought would be the next most difficult bit turned out to be quite easy – if a little fiddly. It's what I believe is called an 'elliptic leaf spring'. Only one of my reference pictures shows this springy thing, the rest don't, but I like it so it's in. First I made a simple, and pretty tiny jig.
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April 10, 2026
Over the two bits of tube on the jig slip two fatter bits of tube and the first strip of 0.3mm plastic gets wrapped around.
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April 10, 2026
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April 10, 2026
Off the jig so that I don't end up with a nice springy thing – but stuck to a bit of wood.
Looks an absolute mess as it's before it got cleaned up. That's just a wooden 3mm thick spacer in the middle.
How do these other scratch builders make their parts look so beautiful (that sounds so wrong 😳 )
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April 10, 2026
Front wheel assembled and primed with the springy thing tidied up a bit (lets face it, it’s had a LOT of tidying up).
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April 10, 2026
It was about this time that my mojo hit the buffers. Due to all the reference photos bickering about their petty details, I was wondering if the build was possible at all.
A glass half full sort of person would have relished the opportunity to search down the missing information and set off skipping though fields of daises, whistling merry tunes. A glass half empty person would have thought “sod it” and punched a rabbit or something. I'm more of a “who pinched half my bloody drink!” sort of chap, and ploughed grimly on for two days through the deep dark Google mines. I found a bit more, but it only added to the confusion. Damn.
When my mojo was low, I had all the time in the world to write endless streams of tripe, but the mojo is strong now and I'd rather be punishing the plastic (not a euphemism). As a result, the future posts may be less word intensive (so perhaps there is a god after all).
Anyway, back to the only type body-building I'm ever likely too do.
This is the underside of the deck (if I was playing Tetris, I'd have lost). The bits on either side are water tanks.
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April 10, 2026
Next the boiler gets fitted (odd that, it looks like half a test tube). The cone at the top was the result of plan B, as so many of these bits are.
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April 10, 2026
The ruins of 'cone plan A':
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April 10, 2026
Plan B was just four disks glued together (the pole is to keep them central) and then turned on my mini lathe….
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April 10, 2026
Okay, it's a Dremel with delusions of grandeur.
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April 10, 2026
I couldn't resist putting the bits together. Such an exciting life us modellers lead.
(Due to the law of averages, If I keep saying it, someday someone might possibly believe it).
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April 10, 2026
Next I need to dress the body and as it's dead macho, this should under no circumstances be referred to as a skirt.
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April 10, 2026
As I seem to be drawn to things covered in rivety pimples, I've re-purposed a bradawl to make the experience less painful (for me, not you).
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April 10, 2026
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April 10, 2026
I've got no idea what the things on either side of the deck are. One image shows them as rectangular and one shows them with rounded fronts. I went with rounded, because why not?
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April 10, 2026
The yellow stuff is the double sided tape before the backing is removed.
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April 10, 2026
No prizes for guessing the base for the steering wheel is half a wheel from the spare parts supply. The riveting on the deck is a work of fiction. Like much of the build really.
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April 10, 2026
As I've not been doing this modelling business for long, I haven't got many spare bits to rummage through. This is my entire mini hoard:
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April 10, 2026
Coal bins for the back.
There is only a little empty space at the top so that I don't have to fill the whole bin with 'coal'. I remember reading somewhere, somewhen, that coal is one of the few things that modellers can use that can be used for itself in miniature. If you see what I mean.
I hope that fact didn’t push something more important out of my brain. Imagine the horror of finding that you now know how to make scale model coal and have forgot how to make tea. 😮
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April 10, 2026
Failing spectacularly to find a single piece of coal (it looks like I'm going to freeze when the nuclear winter arrives) and finally decided that having a bag delivered is probably likely to be considered to be overkill, I was forced to improvise. I knew this alcoholism would come in useful one day.
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April 10, 2026
Turned out quite passable if I do say so myself:
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April 10, 2026
In the original engraving the funnel is a little dull. I can't have dull. Most of the other images I've found show a much more flashy funnel. As is so often the case, plan A failed. I tried sawing a few mill down from the top, all the way around the tube, splaying the petals outward and inserting tiny triangular wedges in the gaps. It sort of worked, but it was so fiddly and time consuming I gave up.
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April 10, 2026
I desperation I had a rummage in my spare bits and thought this might be a possibility. Stay with me...
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April 10, 2026
After filing, scraping, puttying and sanding, I'm quite please with the result.
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April 10, 2026
I have no evidence that this was on any Robey steamer, as this build is delving into the realm of fiction, mine does. I know you can buy plastic 'I' beams, but I've never had a use for them, I just wanted to see if I could make them. Saw a square tube lengthways….
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April 10, 2026
Glue them back to back,
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April 10, 2026
Tadaaaaaaa.
If you've managed to get this far, some countries would award you a medal and a small pension. This, being Britain, I'll just say “Ta”.
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April 10, 2026
This bit I had very little evidence for and was dreading it as a result. It ended up being one of the most enjoyable bits so far. I had these two cross sections, but as usual, they didn't bloody agree with each other. Another session of 'make it up as you go along' time.
53
April 10, 2026
How many of us really understand how a steam engine works? It certainly wasn't knowledge that I picked up working on various mainframe computers – not even the ICL ones. Time to do some 'tinterneting.
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April 10, 2026
This is the parts of one element to the main crank-shaft (there was also a shorter brass tube that didn't get the memo to turn up for the photo-shoot).
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April 10, 2026
Those bits assembled.
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April 10, 2026
This is one of the guide supports for the secondary piston – with the piston by the side.
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April 10, 2026
After a ‘hard’ weekend playing with me toys:
I was surprised how much I managed to get done, but this was the weekend when Mrs Gorby was away, therefore less interruptions. The crank-shaft alone has 29 parts and the whole lot together has about 70 parts. I've no idea if it would really have looked like this, but it is feasible according to the basic principles of steam enginey operation (it is in Gorbyland anyway).
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April 10, 2026
Quite please with the result after it's glad-rags had been slapped on. I used four different metallic colours so that everything didn't look like one confusing pile of scrap. Think of it as an artistic interpretation of an artistic interpretation.
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April 10, 2026
Hi, I'm Sillyass Bodd. You might be wondering why I'm standing like this.
60
April 10, 2026
It's because some buggers cut me bum off.
Stings a bit. I might need to see the ear, nose and arse specialist for a bit of plastic surgery..
61
April 10, 2026
Not a promising start if the end point is a Victorian gentleman engineer, but beggars, choosers and all that. Robey steamers rarely attained significant altitude, so the parachute and flying gear were considered surplus to requirements, whereupon he appeared a little too 'naturist' to be deemed presentable to 1870 society. I decided to cut his arms off to make it easier to put his coat on. Which may explain why Mrs Gorby never asked me to dress the kids when they were young.
I considered two options for the coat, a tiny bespoke jacket made form the finest quality Italian bog paper, or the more industrial milliput approach. I went milliput because….. I don't know, whatever. Initially it did look like he was wearing a poorly tailored, but very cosy 75 tog duvet.
62
April 10, 2026
In the illustration didn't have a top hat, it just had to be done. 5 mm tube was the first attempt but it was soon obvious it was miles too big. 4 mm rod was tried next – miles too small. After a exhaustive search, I managed to find a small piece of 4.5 mm, you'd think that would be perfect wouldn't you? Still too bloody small – but only fractionally. Starting to loose the will to live, I eventually used 5 mm rod, filed down to size. I removed half his head in order to fit the hat (I'm not sure if I fully understand this hat fitting business).
After a lot of fettling, filing and farting around, now with fetching, regulation 1870’s moustache.
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April 10, 2026
BAD Sillyass! I'm going to have to hose that wheel down now.
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April 10, 2026
I've found that one of the things about scratch-building is that you need to keep a lookout for stuff that may possibly be useful, and if you're convinced your grandmothers false teeth are going to come in useful for a project, then sorry granny, it's for a greater good. The steering wheel stumped me to start with but then I found a small metal key-ring thingy that was the perfect size. Admittedly solder would have been the 'look at me, I'm a proper modeller' thing.
65
April 10, 2026
Super glue was this wimps cop-out but it worked fine (still needs a tiny tad of filler).
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April 10, 2026
Sticking with the steering, one of the probs was that I needed a worm gear for my fetish gear collection. I could have sawn a bit off a wood screw – it's not as if I can't spare one, I've got thousands. In the spirit of making life as difficult as I can, I wanted to make one. First off, draw a spiral on a piece of plastic tube. Very, very carefully saw down the line. It took three attempts but I finally manage to produce something passable.
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April 10, 2026
Insert plastic rod, space out and clamp either end then a few dabs of Extra Thin.
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April 10, 2026
Finally file into something a bit better. Not perfect but this is three times as long as I need – I just used the best third.
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April 10, 2026
Now doing its job:
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April 10, 2026
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April 10, 2026
I didn't have a lot of info for the bum end of the boiler and it's likely to be as inaccurate as the rest of the model. Although it looks like an amorphous white blob in this pic, the furnace/boiler door has twenty parts.
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April 10, 2026
Looks a tad more defined in this shot:
The observant amongst you may have noticed that I've painted Robey. I mentioned in a previous post that Robeys company colour appears to have been a mid to darkish green. Tamiya X-5 seemed to fit the bill well enough for me. If no one can agree the exact colour of a bloody Spitfire, what chance do I stand getting this right? Although I can use that to my advantage – who's going to know?
73
April 10, 2026
It looks like BMW learned a valuable lesson form Robey. Why bother fitting working indicators? It does appear to have a headlight though and for that I needed a small, 'glass' faced cone. I only have one piece of clear sprue in my spares box and that wasn't fat enough. Thinks……
Time for an experiment. I heated the end of the sprue over a flame until I had a molten lump and squashed it into a ceramic surface. This is it after being filed and polished into shape:
I mark my micro-mesh boards to make them easier to select the right grade.
74
April 10, 2026
This is a Victorian headlight.
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April 10, 2026
Tiny biddy little bits – what could they possibly be?
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April 10, 2026
I assume it’s the boiler water level gauge. This is the second one. I completed the first one and then put the reverse tweezers holding it, to one side with the feeling of a job well done. Then dropped it. Snap!
77
April 10, 2026
I know that you lot get to add tiny facsimiles of billion-dollar-super-mega-hypersonic-people-dismantlers to you models - well I get to make a shovel! I would add that it's a coal shovel but I'm not making it any sexier am I?
I wanted to try a new (to me) thing. It took about fifteen mins to cut the male and female parts of the mould and another ten to plunge mould four shovel heads. As it was only 0.25mm thick plastic sheet, I only need to use boiling water to soften it. Dead easy.
78
April 10, 2026
I was delayed finishing the final touches due to hoards of in-laws (I believe the collective noun is a 'pestilence of in-laws') descending on our house, so fun was banned for the weekend. 🙁
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April 10, 2026
After tarting up with Alclad and everything, and then, because a coal shovel wouldn't have been exactly sterile, detarted-down with an extra grubby wash.
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April 10, 2026
My original intention was to insert a cobbled street into a pretty elaborate oak base to make you all go “WOW!”, but I'm really not in the mood for wood worrying at the moment, that's why I went for 'understated' instead. The street is just insulation board (liberated from a skip) and the cobbled effect (yes I know they're 'setts', 'tinternet has already told me off for calling it a that, but 'setted street' doesn't sound right) is simply 3mm square tube pressed very lightly into the surface. Very repetitive and very boring to do, but I think it's quite effective. Then…….
81
April 10, 2026
Surface sealed with diluted PVA; primed; painted black then 'granite' grey sprayed at a low angle (to keep the black in the joins); a few extra colours to vary it; light grey dry-brushed to highlight the setts; a liberal coat of Pledge; and another liberal coat of Pledge. The surface still looked too porous so another liberal coat of dilute PVA was sloshed on. When that was dry I added a very dark pin wash into the joints.
Hello?
Still awake?
82
April 10, 2026
Not up to Bughuter standards but if you want that level of modelling you’re tuned to the wrong channel.
Currently I'm struggling to get decent pics on my new camera, the bloody thing is too clever by half and seems a damn sight more complicated than an IBM mainframe.

Thanks for showing an interest or even if you're only pretending to show an interest. All the same to me. 🙂

Commentaires

56 14 December 2019, 15:11

Zach Wilson
Hell yeah! this is rad

14 December 2019, 15:22

Alex K
Fantastic!

14 December 2019, 15:46

bughunter
Gorby, that is a great model with a lot of fantastic ideas and details! 👍 👍 Thank you for mention me in the preamble, but you can really proud of it!

14 December 2019, 16:10

Neuling
Very nice build!

14 December 2019, 17:39

John Thomas
Very cool

14 December 2019, 18:03

gorby Auteur
Thanks mates. 👍 I'm glad you like it 🙂

15 December 2019, 09:13

Alec K
Wow! The modeler cum philosopher strikes again. Very imaginative, original, and expertly done. Super 👍

16 December 2019, 12:48

Ben M
I love everything about this, the rivets, the steam, the green, the brass, the curly mustache, and the hat. What a great subject!

16 December 2019, 15:54

gorby Auteur
That's the first time (and almost certainly the last) I've been called a philosopher! I should imagine that Nietzsche may have one or two objections. 😄
Thanks very much Alec and Ben. 👍

17 December 2019, 16:38

Neuling
Nietzsche would shurely not have objected, but his widow Elisabeth certainly!

17 December 2019, 17:00

Alec K
I was thinking more along the lines of Socrates... 😄

17 December 2019, 20:16

gorby Auteur
😄 😄 😄 😄 😄

19 December 2019, 14:06

wilky
Very nice

19 December 2019, 14:08

Tim Heimer
Nicely done!

19 December 2019, 14:34

Danny Meer
Amazing road steamer! Fantastic little details, love it 🙂

19 December 2019, 14:40

Tom ...
Most excellent! Really brings the past alive! Ironically it's a scratch build of a "scratch-build"

19 December 2019, 17:48

gorby Auteur
Thanks very much mates. I'm pleased you like my little oddity 👍

20 December 2019, 15:55

Torsten
How😎 is this, very nice 👍

22 December 2019, 08:55

gorby Auteur
Thanks mate. 👍

22 December 2019, 09:21

Naram
excellent !

22 December 2019, 17:12

Nigel
"I'm pleased you like my little oddity"

Actually, we try not to draw attention to it! 😄

The model, on the hand, is splendid 👍

22 December 2019, 21:35

Chris Greathouse
Splendid skills!

22 December 2019, 21:45

gorby Auteur
That made me laugh Nigel. 😄
Thanks everyone for you nice comments. I'm surprised this has been so popular. 🙂

23 December 2019, 10:25

Kit Kabinet
Great atmospheric steampunky build! I can almost hear it rumbling along.

23 December 2019, 11:39

Thomas Wirsching
Very refreshing to see something different here!

23 December 2019, 11:53

gorby Auteur
Thanks very much mates. 🙂
Thomas: It was very refreshing building something different. I'm at a bit of a loss as to what will be my next scratch-build.

23 December 2019, 15:36

Alec K
Scratch build an airplane perchance ?

24 December 2019, 04:40

Bernhard Schrock
Very inspiring and cool ???? !

24 December 2019, 12:08

gorby Auteur
Thanks very much Bernhard. 🙂
Alex: I did consider doing the XF-85 Goblin, but I really enjoyed doing the twiddly bits on the steamer. I also quite enjoyed making it up as I went along, rather than building an exact miniature of reality. Which is probably a complete anathema to most of the modellers on ScaleMates.

24 December 2019, 15:30

Chris Greathouse
You should scratch make vehicles from the animated movie, Steamboy... My all time favorite steam era type movie. Even if you don't like animated movies, this one will still suck you in, it's so good 🙂 So many funky vehicles. If you haven't seen it, you might find it online free, but is totally worth the couple dollars from a streaming service. I would love to see you make attempt Ray Steam's Monocycle. Youtube Video

24 December 2019, 18:45

gorby Auteur
Thanks for the suggestion Chirs, I'll have a look into that. 🙂
I hope you have a happy Xmas to all you good'un's out there in ScaleMates land.

25 December 2019, 07:28

wilky
You could make a Miles M52

25 December 2019, 10:30

wilky
Pity it was never a 1:1

25 December 2019, 10:32

Spanjaard
it certainly looks great to me!

25 December 2019, 20:47

Chris Greathouse
What would be cooler?? Another awesome aircraft (tons of aircraft on scalemates), or an awesome steampunk monowheel that's scratch built?

25 December 2019, 21:34

gorby Auteur
Thanks for the comments and suggestions mates. Very much appreciated. 🙂

26 December 2019, 16:31

Finn
So cool!

2 September 2023, 09:11

Rui S
Hehehe another diferent Beauty. Great Work as usual 👍

2 September 2023, 12:33

gorby Auteur
Thanks Finn and Rui. I'm glad you like it, it's still one of my all time favourite models. 🙂

2 September 2023, 13:45

gorby Auteur
Sorry to jump this to the top of the Newsfeed. It's just that the site the build report was on went kaput, so I thought I'd dump it on you lot.
Warning: there may be weirdness.

3 10 April, 16:11

bughunter
Lovely to see the build log back 👍 Thanks!

1 10 April, 16:41

Alec K
Gorby, it's about time you graced us with the nitty gritty of this fabulous build. Hopefully going forward, you will not waste your time posting at some fly-by-night platforms and just do it where it's at…😉

11 April, 14:02

Dexi Goodchild
Glad you jumped it back up, I hadn't seen this one; fantastic and unusual too! 👍

11 April, 14:15

gorby Auteur
Thanks Frank, Alec & Dexi. 🙂
Alec: there used to be a link to the build but obviously the link died when the site vanished, so you're right, I should have put it here in the first place. I hope to do a few more if I get time in the coming weeks. 🙂

1 11 April, 14:41

Jennifer Franklin
Thanks for bringing this back to active list, worth seeing

15 April, 01:41

gorby Auteur
Thanks Jennifer. 👍

15 April, 05:57

Martin Oostrom
I always love these tongue in check descriptive builds. Especially if the build is as nice as this one.
When is the next train to Gorbyland?

15 April, 16:50

gorby Auteur
Thanks very much Martin, glad you like it. 🙂
The Gorbyland train has temporarily come off the rails. I would say normal service will resume soon but I'm not convinced about either the words 'soon' or 'normal' in that statement. 😄

2 16 April, 06:45

Mr D
Another great one Gorby 👏 like it 👍😁

18 April, 21:49

gorby Auteur
Thanks Mr D. 🙂

1 19 April, 06:59

gorby Auteur
Danke Findus, freut mich, dass es Ihnen gefällt. 👍

1 9 May, 13:44

Gustavo Antonelli
Gorgeous!!

13 May, 17:36

gorby Auteur
Thank you Gustavo. 🙂

14 May, 07:20

Djordje Nikolic
Something different indeed. Fun one! Well done!

16 May, 06:15

gorby Auteur
Thanks Djordje. 🙂

1 16 May, 06:33

S M
Magnificent scratch building! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

1 17 May, 15:53

gorby Auteur
Thanks very much SM. 🙂

2 17 May, 16:42

Album info

Let me introduce you to what may, or may not be a Robey Road Steamer. To be honest, I'm not 100% sure myself. It's 1/48 and completely scratch-built (other than the driver who was originally a WWII tropical pilot). I know you're a load of vicious brutes who usually get your kicks from things that go BANG! But if you hang around you might even learn something (if you already know I'm an idiot, you might as well turn to the other channel now).

A 'Road Steamer' is a class of vehicle that I wasn't previously aware of. They were a development of the very early Traction Engines - pretty much, the first trucks. This one is loosely based on the original Robey Steamer which first trundled the British roads in 1870. Its main innovation was the solid rubber blocks on the wheels which meant it didn't damage road surfaces and gave it much more traction than other competing steamers, allowing it to pull up to 30 tons.

I'll start by lining up my pathetic excuses. Get ready….
This may not be the most historically accurate model in the history of the universe, I scoured t'internet and only found about a dozen or so pictures of the vehicle in question, and ALL of them are different. We aren't talking minor differences, they all show major variations. Part of the reason for the differences is probably because this is long before mass production. Each of these vehicles was individually made, possibly for a specific job. Their working life may have been measured in decades, so they could possibly have been altered at some point. Another possible reason for some of the variation, is that some of the differences could be due to artistic licence, as most of the reference pics are engravings.

I believe this is the first model ever attempted of it – I wonder why?

as a result, I'm going to have to bill this one as 'In the flavour of….'. The alternative would be to suggest that this is entirely accurate to the last detail – but only in the reality that I alone inhabit (Gorbyopolis – where the sky isn't so high, the rabbits smell of purple and not a lot makes sense – but quite nice really (if you ignore the marauding swarms of brackets)). So if you see something and think "That doesn't look like the original picture", you'll have to accept that I've seen that element in a different picture. Honest – would I lie to you? (under no circumstances should you attempt to answer that with any degree of honesty!)

I'm pleased with the result (with minor reservations) but always in the back of my head I'm thinking "Bughunter would do this soooo much better" and "Angel would probably be able to get the engine running!" One day I'll get there (probably not – I'm too lazy and too easily distracted by the next thing oh look, a purple bunny….).

Robey Road Steamer 1870

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1:48

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