Friday Update: Thirteen Nine Twenty-four…

It's always lovely to see photos of my old commissions, and even nicer when it's a photo of a new commission on an old commission, and that's where things start this week with 31123 now at home on Leatown...

Kevin Wood photo.

In modelling news this week it's been all about 009. Some models with varied heritage but all 3D printed have been on the bench for either completion or re-working.  There is a fifth too, but it only arrived yesterday, another Dolgoch. These will work their way through the paint booth next week, it's lovely to work on some more narrow gauge, and the myriad of styles, design and chassis make them quite refreshing. 

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I managed a day off on Wednesday, well morning really, and a trip over to Porthmadog to catch the sunshine - oh and steam (we didn't ride though) as well as a breakfast in Spooners...

 

Back in the workshop the next layout commission is a little smaller - this is N gauge and a build of 'Fancy another beer' from my first book. The basic composition has been mocked up now and I think works well so the next stage is to start to flesh this out in styrene. The 'interior' of the brewery (off shot to the left) will be interesting because I need to light this carefully from inside, I'm not sure quite how I'm going to do this yet... well I know how I'll wire it up, I'm just not sure how I'll light it from inside the box... it needs to give contrast, but also work visually... a good challenge.

The Susquehanna GP40 my customer has supplied (above) will be weathered as will the CP rail hopper, the former reminding me of the Susquehanna GP40 I had here - before Alan bought it off me and has now branded it for the Mercian and Eastern - a fictitious shortline that I helped realise the graphics for - he sent me this photo of it at work on his forestry based HO scale layout (thanks Alan).

Alan Sewell photo.

Finally some personal projects this week - you've seen the RS23 in an earlier post, that has been great fun to work on, but I've also taken delivery of another (yes a sixth!) Graham Farish 08. This one has already seen major surgery, loosing around 2mm from the base of the body (requiring the equipment boxes to be re-located higher up, requiring modifications to door panels and handles) and 2mm from the cab roof... I'm sure many of you will guess the prototype, I've designed an etched roof to fit and the nameplates are already in the Custom Nameplate Studio range - so will be easy to add. The project now needs to resolve the source of HEA wagons in N gauge - and having ruled out the awful Farish versions and determined the (lack of) availability of the TPM mouldings (and the fact the tooling went missing many years ago) I think we might be in to the realms of something new - I've been talking with Will at Coventry Rail Works about the possibilities here so watch this space... Will designed the replacement chassis for the Peco hoppers I worked on earlier this year and is about to release some lovely 3D printed wagon kits for other alumina hoppers - so well worth checking out if they sound you're thing.

This weekend I'm hoping to get over to the Keighley and Worth Valley to ride the 101 and 144 units as they're running a half hourly service - I've never visited and the lure of a Pacer (!!) is strong. Sunday should see Kohlenbachbrücke move to a new home, which will mean I have an empty shelf!! I wonder what will be build next?! I hope you all have a relaxing weekend, until next time, more soon...

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