Friday Update: Three Seven Twenty...

I often find myself writing these updates, especially over the C-19 pandemic, and wondering where the week went...

I've been working on finishing off a few models - the Lyd2 diesel is working now, but I've had to redraw and conceptualise the flycrank due to some mis-measurements on the throw of the Graham Farish flycranks on my part. Hopefully the new bits will be here next week. I've also cleaned up another batch of Planet's for Planet Industrials, both stepped and non stepped variety. The second prototype of bushes for the Planet chassis have arrived and have been tested too, so they're now in production and word from Steve says all the etches for current and future kits are progressing well now the supplier is back in the swing of things.

I've also been working on Ursula - she is a Duton model, but modified to fit the Grafar outside framed 08 rather than inside frame. This involved some modification to the cylinders, otherwise fairly straight forward fitting. I've painted it to match the customers previous Muriel, and have a lovely turned brass dome by Paul Bartlett (thanks Paul). The transfers were custom designed again to fit the model perfectly, and the plates were supplied by my customer. The model is a generic Heywood 0-6-0, although quite close to Ella - however Ursula was specified so that's how I've done  her - just some coal and glazing to finish.

Out in the garden I'm proving to have green fingers as well as burnt ones... first cucumber, I'm no fan of them, the kids are, but it was very tasty nevertheless and hopefully we'll be sick of them before the end of the summer. On the subject of burnt fingers, this RT Models Sentinel is coming along very neatly indeed. It's not a compicated thing, but it's fiddly and the instructions are not the clearest I've worked from. If you've not built metal kits before I don't think I'd suggest starting here...

I did a short video on the Facebook page about it ::here:: what do you think, is this something you'd like to see more of on my blog? I've also been pondering doing some video of the layouts I have built, a mini exhibition, since it's unlikely any of them will see the exhibition world this autumn. I'm planning a bit more work on Pont-y-dulais this weekend... the chinchilla dust has arrived, and the shed needs painting. Whatever you have planned I hope you have a good weekend. More soon...