Friday Update: Twenty-eight One Twenty-one…

A week of variety, transfer design, 7/8ths prototyping and some personal projects to share in today’s update…

A visit to Steve, a long time coming, it has been a long time since we had a catch up and he was kind enough to both provide the tea and the laser cutter so whilst we caught up on 6 months of news I managed to get the 7/8ths Ruston LB bodywork cut on his machine, more on that shortly. Here the prototype LB is posed with a model he’s been working on that looks superb so far, a mix of kit and scratch built it’s going to test a few ideas out for our joint project.

Back at home I’ve been designing more custom decals for a variety of projects, some my own (the ‘Ballard and Wantage’ and ‘Hilton and Mears’) and others for commissions. One set, Terra Transport, are decorating a Branchline Trains boxcar (below) that will be heading across the Atlantic to a new home as a thank you for the help with the back story, as well as providing a conversation piece on Andrew’s Hopewell Subsivision. I’ll share a post on the box car and it’s faux history separately at some point!

The PiChem marking have transformed an old Lima PCA that was destined for a Corkickle Brake layout. This aging model has had 3D printed brakes, etched walkways and brake discs, but otherwise is still a neat model. I’ve added some dubious looking staining from whatever chemical has been carried, I must finish off the chassis and do some light weathering. It looks great with the stalwart 08, note the decorated sample Vixtory in the background, I’ve retrofitted the new speaker enclosure into this for another video shortly…

I mentioned laser cutting, well here she is in action. Steve has a pro setup with chiller and industrial extraction so we can cut styrene. The chassis and bonnets are made, and I’ve drawn up the cab parts too, the only thing holding back assembly now is the metal etched detail parts, due in a few weeks.

Finally this week, I’ve been working on a batch of PXA wagons for a customer, and these need to be sprayed a warm yellow before the ‘TML’ logos are applied, luckily the shade also suits the H&M forestry livery that I’m applying to this FM, so that will be todays job.

Not shown are the decals in place on the 009 Taliesin but this can wait for next weeks update when I’ve finished the detail painting too, suffice to say it’s looking really neat with the black edged panels with a thin red line and then straw / grey / straw lining, aping the livery she wore when first released into traffic. This weekend should see some more work on Bear Creek as well as an attempt to complete the basic road structures on Beaverbrook, as long as it’s not too cold! I hope you have a good weekend, not long until February now! More soon…