phew! I've just finished digging my way out from 10 pages down the lists. well although a lot has been happening on the house renovation front, not a lot has happened as far as model making is concerned, but here is a brief update just to dust off the shelves so to speak.

In my last post you will maybe recall (or maybe not) I had designed and cut the parts for a covered wagon using plastic card cut in a Silhouette Portrait cutter which I had assembled and more or less awaited painting. I think I'd got this far

I glued the body to the chassis after first making ventilation holes underneath to allow the solvent fumes to escape, then completed it using the brake gear from a wagon underframe kit, it was now ready for the paint shop.

Once painted and weathered and some of the decals fixed it hung around for a while and during that time the roof warped badly due I suspect to it being 3 layers laminated together. There was nothing for it but to remove the warped roof panel which I attempted with a scalpel, during this operation I managed to collapse one of the W irons and the brakes on that side too. I have since filled the whole roof area with Milliput and filed/sanded it back to its proper profile. I decided the whole W iron set up was weak and vulnerable so have removed it pending further work using possibly etched W iron sub-assemblies, but I think this particular model is destined for a grounded van and any further development will be a completely new attempt, here's a photo of what I have at the moment.

This has not been a complete waste of time I have learned a lot from it, although after such a protracted break I've forgotten what knowledge I'd gained in operating Inkscape so will have to start again from scratch.