With a the lack of arrival of wheels making progress impossible, I've dragged out the Tower Warship kit again. I bought this on a whim about 20 years ago but keep getting fed up with hacking away at huge amounts of pewter to get anything done. All the sub assemblies, so to speak, are done and after hours of filing the window apertures now take the full set of Heljan Warship windows I bought. Next is to trial fit the cab interiors to get a good fit (more hacking away at pewter...) prior to painting the body. With the Western I have 2/3 of the holy trinity.

I'm going to change the way specific builds are published (assuming Plan A works), in that each build will have it's own blog which get updated as things move along rather than just posting a new blog each time. That's the idea anyway...

The trend continues, with 'I'm only having one engine' now up to seven (counting the bubble car) with the arrival of the Accurascale (now Heljan branded) Class 97 (oh yes it was ;-)). Must be some sort of shunting Thomas story in this pic... waiting for the decoder to arrive before powering up and playing with No. 20. Testing. I mean testing, obviously. Connoisseur 04 kit next?

Exactly 1 year and 2 days after buying the kit at Guildex I finally finished the painting! Just the lettering to go (the word 'Brick' being provided by a member of this parish) and then a tidy up and done. The only photos I can find are ones from 1966 and one from 1967 at Euston (On Paul Bartlett's site) and the wagon seems in very good repair so no replacement plank type weathering, though there is one from 'after 1957' at Bradford (same site) that does have repair but I'm studiously ignoring that. Also, no white on the handbrake lever handles - seems all wrong but the 60's and all that I suppose. I'm hoping this years Connoisseur purchase, a BEV bolster, might get done a tiny bit faster...

A second L&Y 6-wheel brake van is now built, and has been primed after the photo was taken. Minimal instructions, bits that have to be made and adding brake rigging makes this kit a challenge. I'd forgotten just how long the first one took to build.

Employing my exemplary photographic skills, the latest outputs from the spray booth get a test run behind the 02 - whih can just pull this little lot. 

The HTO hopper is now done, complete with matt varnish. The second one will be getting a more severe weathering. This one will be getting a load a some point. The working leaf springs on this wagon still work after painting, which is nice. The 5-plank is my first go at representing the mix of paints/lack of paint these wagons had in their final days.  Transfers to be added then a final going over with 'dirt' before varnish. Two more 5-planks to finish painting, and the three 13t steel opens are awaiting the imminent arrival of new soldering iron tips.  

With the 5-planks awaiting the arrival of paint, I've moved on to a trio of BR/LNER 13t Steel Open wagons. After a lot of picture starting I decided that the way the instructions say to make the tops of the sides, folded over with 0.7mm rod soldered underneath doesn't really represent the prototype. I'd made two bodies before reaching this conclusion, so for the third one I removed the 2mm or so fold at the top of the sides - by clamping in folder and waggling. This has a reason, waggling them off rather than cutting leaves a trace of the half-etch. I then soldered on 1mm brass rod to the 'front' of the remaining half-etch which looks right - the inside goes up the back of the rod leaving the rod overhanging as per the photos. Well I know what I mean. The top one is the instructions version, the lower mine. Now to re-do the other two.

The door slams provided are of an interesting shape, so I made brass ones for scrap etch

The horsebox has been put to one side until I can find some buffers, so on with a trio of fitted GWR/BR 5 plank opens, diagram 1/034. The general construction doesn't get much simpler. 

This has been another 'interesting' kit, most things didn't fit or go where the instructions said - even the photo supplied is of a different horsebox! I have found one photo that is the correct one and worked from that. The brake rigging is based on the sketch supplied with the instructions, I made the trees myself because the only supplier of them is ceasing trading at the end of the month so figured I'd better learn... I nearly abandoned this build, but it's probably going to come out looking something like the prototype.

The LNER hoppers are now painted, awaiting transfers and weathering. The working leaf spring on the farthest one still work after painting, moving them a few times during drying seems to do the trick.