The Unexpected Absense

Having successfully relocated (no more red wall in the background of my photos!) I have been only briefly sitting at my desk. I have built the basis of a few PW wagons and have some coach sides, Dick Dastardly is green at last and I have stripped a Hornby Bullied! None of these things I can prove as my external hard drive is playing hard ball... So here we have a photo of the latest ARC Models offering which I happened to be working on today.

This RS&H 0-6-0T will eventually represent one of those that operated at Nechells power stations until the 1970s. Now, I have no real experience with weathering, so this could be interesting...

Road Trip!!!

Back in March, my friend, partner and I jumped in the car and headed to Bristol for a music gig. Whilst there, I paid a visit to Congresbury and got out my tape measure (much to the dismay of my partner and passing by cyclists...).

Green (with envy)

Being the only diesel in a fleet of steam isn't easy, especially when the grubby, faded yellow paint of your industrial roots stands out next to the clean, lined green of the rest of the shed. Well the time has come for that to change, 00 "Dick Dastardly/The Mean Machine" is turning green!

For no practical reason, I am conducting the repaint panel by panel. It started as a test to see what the livery would like on the cab side, before committing to the whole model, but I got carried away... Either way I hope you agree that the result is rather pleasing thus far.

Note - Varnish has yet to be applied; the glossy finish will not be permanent.

An example of the 00 gauge work that has been taking over - fully fitted interiors!

Finally, contrary to my last post, I am no longer on my last Bachmann Mark 1, following a... shall we say, incident... on ebay...

New Year Update

Well 2014 is gone and as usual, I started plenty of projects and finished none...

For the past few months it has been standard gauge taking the physical attention with only design work and 'tinkering' made on the 009 side of the desk. But a special delivery has arrived!

Narrow Planet offer a fantastic custom etching service for the name, number or works plate of your choice. To begin with I ordered a selection of GWR numbers, the name and no. for the WVLR Diesel (picture in the next edition) and the Andrew Barclay above. "Peggy Murdoch" is awaiting detail components but for the time being happily runs up an down my desk. Ignoring the blu-tac still in place on some unstuck components, I'm very happy with this model.

Finally, following an awful lot of fine brush work, I am on my last Bachmann Mark 1 interior! This is due to be done the week before moving house and I'll get on to building a small baseboard for a side project (I need to test out my woodwork on something less important) based around the Andrew Barclay and NCB wagons in the picture.