Friday Update: Six Three Twenty...

March already, who'd have thought it, well the weather is crisper and brighter here in the Dee Valley, the river back to it's more usual height, sheep back on the pastures and this morning a lovely frost and sunshine. In the cold workshop lots of new things, as usual I'll share some of them here...

First of all, a large parcel of prototype and production parts arrived from Narrow Planet towers, in it were the first version of this 'stretched' Grafar 08 chassis I designed. This re-uses all drive components and screws and apart from pick ups that will need to be formed, could easily be done with only minor servicing tools like watch makers screw drivers. There is a small error in the prototype, so it's being re-printed, and I need to draw up etched artwork for the coupling rods and fake outside frames for the Lyd2 diesel this is destined for... however it's implications are much greater, this means we can do anything in 009 that needs an outside framed chassis that the 08 motor will fit within - or even not, as in theory I could drop the vertical position of the motor by keeping the distances between the gears the same and shifting the motor backwards. We'll see where things go next, I've got a plan for a Narrow Planet anniversary kit this year which will use an 08 chassis - more on that another time.

I visited my friend Steve mid week to borrow the use of his industrial laser - I was cutting parts for 3 projects, a large scale 7/8ths RNAD Hudson brake van, a 7/8ths Alan Keef K12 and the cab and foot steps for the Whimshire locomotive. The coach went off as a kit, so I look forward to seeing how that turns out for the customer - the others need me to assemble them...

...and the roof for the Whimshire is a perfect fit! It gives the model the character of the prototype nicely. This is now all wired up too, although I need to build a speaker enclosure as the sound isn't great at present. Once I've done that, I need to finish off the roof, and work out how to mount the removable components and then I'll get some primer on it - hopefully painting starting in the next fortnight.

Last things this week, the pair of 7/8ths scale Simplex. The protected (below) has returned to it's customer and he's sent me this photo, he's applied the stencil lettering he'd had made and it looks superb, absolutely amazing. The carefully finished weathering coming to life... above the armoured one is being weathered, and I'm not happy with it yet, although it's getting there certainly. Hopefully finished in the next few days early next week as there is quite a back log of work in the workshop at present! In the background can be seen some smaller OO scale commissions, that I can describe more next time.

Hope you have a good weekend, I've got a busy one with the family, so probably no model making but if the weather holds maybe a chance to play on the tramway for half an hour at some point.