Lack of updates should not be confused with lack of progress, although the two are usually related - I can't write about doing naff all, well, I could, but people would soon stop reading it!

However, in the time I've not been here posting, I have summoned up the courage to actually make a start on painting the 37 and it hasn't been the disaster that I feared it would. It came close to it on a number of occasions though! Mostly problems with paint adhesion, I don't think I cleaned the body quite enough before assembly, and on a couple of occasions I thinned the Railmatch acrylics a little too much, which didn't help. A bit of remedial work with some fine sandpaper did the job though, and now you'd never know!

This is how it looks now:

After masking all of the stripes around the door areas, I was starting to wish that I'd decided to build it as a triple grey example! Still, I'm fairly pleased with the end result, even though it has required quite a lot of touching in in places - I'm not sure Tamiya masking tape is as good as it used to be.

I've also got the replacement brake shoes from Shapeways - these are the best quality parts that I've had in the FUD material, and they arrived within 7 days.

I've now ordered some more, as I was three quarters of the way through doing the first bogie before realising each sprue contained enough brake shoes for one bogie, and I had only ordered one of them.... Mounting the brakes in position has also confirmed that I have some room to add extra pick-ups, so these will also be put in place, which should help with the problems experienced on the first test run.

In addition to the bogie works, a coat of Klear will go on the body next, in preparation for adding the decals, of which the orange cantrail lining is what I'm looking forward to least. Everything else is straightforward, there's the Kingfishers to go on the engine room doors and the numbers are Replica rub-on ones. I'm toying with the idea of putting the OHL warning flashes onto thin plastic sheet, or photo paper, and sticking them on, to provide a little bit of relief, but haven't quite made my mind up in that respect.