The next thing to do with Gerard Powys Dewhurst was to touch in the paintwork in the areas which had received attention. A few coats of signal red on the buffer beams, some matt black on the new buffer I had to build and some crimson lake on the tender frames.

Then it was time to glaze the cab. I have found quite a useful product called 'glue 'n' glaze', which as it's name suggests can be used either as an adhesive or as a glazing material. It looks rather like a more elastic PVA glue, it goes on as a thick white fluid but eventually dries clear. You get a good amount on the model in one corner of the window, then gently drag it across the aperture to fill it completely and leave it to dry. Occasionally you'll have to have a few goes at this as sometimes the glazing bursts as it dries!

Finally, to remove the odd high-gloss finish of the model as supplied, I gave it a few coats of matt varnish to dull the whole thing down and give it more of a work-stained appearance.

Now for my next trick- restarting 'City of Lincoln' after the chalky varnish issue a few weeks ago.

I re-primed the loco a few days after the debacle, so this evening I gave it a first coat of matt acrylic green paint. The matt paint has the right colour, but results in a very dull final finish. Meanwhile gloss paint of the same colour appears too bright... the way I work around this is generally to start with a matt coat, then a gloss coat, then another coat of two of matt to finish.