This morning while No 1 Daughter was at a friends house and my wife was at work, I had a couple of hours modelling time while No2 daughter had her morning nap. Of course the sleeping one year old did mean that I was limited to tasks which were not too noisy, preventing a lot of the layout work I would have liked to be working on.

I did however manage to get on with 50002 and 37196 sat outside in the sun. The 37 was relatively minor work, getting its etched Tre Pol & Pen plates glued into position on the sides. It now needs glazing and the window etch gluing in position, hopefully a job for one evening this week if the weather holds.

The 50 was a lot more time consuming, first adding the orange cantrail line using Hurst models transfers. I cut the transfer into lots of 2 inch lengths (a tip for steam loco lining picked up from Tony Wright). However I still had a lot of issues with the transfer lifting off the model despite the gloss finish. Eventually I got the whole loco lined and headed straight out to protect it with a coat of Halfords Satin varnish. Unfortunately one 10mm section had lifted off and needs to be replaced, likewise an OHLE flash is missing from the front. This all means that I cant get on with reassembling until the faults have been fixed and revarnished. 31466 is next in line for an OHLE stripe, so I will fix 50002 at the same time. I must get on and buy a lining pen as am not having a lot of luck with transfers. I just worry I don't have a steady enough hand for the pens...

The roof will need a good amount of weathering to help mask the fact the line isn't perfectly straight...