Friday Update: Twenty-six Nine Twenty-five…

Welcome to Friday! Another morning blanketed with mist and hopefully, another day of glorious sunshine here in the valley. I’ve been enjoying coffee and mince pie/toffee waffle (subject to availability) on the bench with an old book at ‘break times’ all week - but as I share this, it is still cold and grey and the snoring dog beside me is a welcome hot water bottle…

Kicking things off this week is this rather lovely transformation - an un-rebuilding of a Hornby D14. I designed and have had printed and etched various components to allow the Hornby chassis to slot into the original form. The chassis is an incredibly tight fit - the original boiler is lower than the rebuild, so the 3D print is less than 1mm thick above the motor! Details are a combination of harvested parts from the Hornby model, turned brass bits and castings along with hand made handrails and such. Paint and primer next…

Combining the 3D and 2D etched parts is always exciting and although you know it should all fit (the Shapeways printing method may be ‘old hat’ but it does give dimensionally accurate flat straight surfaces and sharp edges) it’s exciting as you marry up the etched bits… I enjoyed this - I’m looking forward to the Sentinel next (the print for that was ordered this week, along with some kits for restock and parts for commissions).

The Isle of Wight 02 I’ve been assembling in EM from the Alan Gibson kit is in the paint shop. This is a slow process of adding the basic blocks of colour before I add lining and then tidy everything up. When working with metal kits important to give adequate curing time on the layers as otherwise I find they’re more likely to lift or peel. This will be finished in British Railways in the ex-Southern ’sunshine’ Scheme. 

Arriving on the bench is this EFE Rail IoW 02! This Southern liveried machine is being repainted in BR lined black! It will be interesting to compare the two when they are finished. Initial thoughts are they both hold a torch to one another, the plastic model is well detailed and the etched brass model matches most of this but with that imperceptible human touch that helps bring a model to life.

Finally, another repaint and a bit of a favour as I don’t usually do North American commissions! Blog regular Alan has a H0 scale lumber themed layout and wanted the Southern Pacific Atlas Alco S4 transforming into his mill scheme. So far I’ve stripped it down to component parts and respected the main colour - all being well, we’ll have this one wrapped up next week.

 

Last weekend I managed a last trip out behind a diesel on the Llangollen Railway this season - with 31271 doing the honours on the Sunday. On the wet and miserable Saturday Janey and I took a trip out in the car and ended up having coffee and cake in Spooners - no train, but couldn’t the familiar ‘end of the line’ photograph!

In the evenings this week I’ve been steadily working on transforming another Farish 08 - this time another Kernow edition into 08710, a blue example that shared Auchmuty trip duties with my 08762 and 08791 that I’ve also created. She is almost complete here, I’ll do a separate post about the transformation. The EFE Rail clay tiger sneaking into snot has been weathered too - and this one required major surgery to correct the bow in the chassis! That too probably warrants its own post! A few more 90s era projects on the cards in the coming weeks as I’m enjoying myself.

Today Lametton will depart for its new home, and tomorrow Gerald Road the same. This will leave some space here to be filled by new projects for both me and customers… it will be interesting to see what lies in store for the next chapters. Until next time, more soon…

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