After an accidental time wasting visit to Staples I discovered them flogging off desks for £27, a small nook in the spare room means I'm off the precious dining room table and into my own space!

Its a tad cramped. Here we see 'Build your own GTi', I had an old Heljan 33 chassis knocking about from an ancient project gone pete tong. I found a perfect Pre TOPs BFYE GTi on Ebay and some spares from Howes, saw me bag a 27 for around £27. AWESOME.

Here she is going together.

What else has occurred? GSYE 26 gained her horn covers and a new bit of weathering on her roof. And the 27 had her window seals done black with a marker, both now sit calmly waiting for a dose of Laserglaze and a final weather. The BRCW GTi is a bit mad, as the connecting door should be there, and it is, but Heljan have only choosen to inscribe the centre, with no ridge nor groove on the outer sides. Meaning that my technique of weathering and then bringing back gives you a mad looking line right down the centre of the cab.

The seals just need some powders to calm them down to stop them looking so shiny and black. They do make the Heljan body look suddenly much more like a 27. They both need their awesome two arm wiper blades fitted after the glazing.

And the 3rd project saw the need to get convincing looking 40s, cheap and easily for the FWL (Future Welsh Layout) as without them we'd be pretty screwed.

Thanks to Red Devil I got some railroad 40 tanks and set about converting a random Bachmann 45 chassis knocking about. Oh how I thought I was being clever. It doesn't fit at all. I got it sat on the body, all too low, and the 45 chassis a good few MM too short. That shows me for being tight and trying to be clever. However all is not lost. The plan is too keep it mega simple and mega cheap so we can easily knock out 4/5 without too much aggro. They aren't perfect by any imagination, maybe one day when things calm we can go back and revisit them with some more Shawplan bits. But for now, it's Shawplan etched windscreens, some new headcode boxes, a shaved and shaped bonnet and opening up the cabside windows - again massive thanks to the guys over at emgauge70s.co.uk as without their amazing website and modelling I'd be back at where I was at 14 (and of course RMweb).

Anyway here is 337:

So she needs glazing, wipers and her boxes finishing off. We'll get there. But it turns out that a Lima 40 with only a little breathing on makes an ok model. Maggie seems pleased anyway.

Happy Modelling

Oly