After the very rare occurrence of getting home at a sensible time during month end reporting, I have managed a little bit of Monday night modelling.

First up the J12 sleeper, this has now been fitted with vacuum breaks (including the brackets) which had been removed from a Bachmann mk1 BG that had been converted to air brakes.  Battery boxes were added from an ABS casting, but it still needs the dynamo (a casting that needs fitted to a few of my coaches) and a second small electrical box (I think I have a suitable Frogmore etch for this).  The two boxes will still need to have a rear plate adding (why do they never include this when its visible from the other side of the coach?)

Next up was some painting, last year I built a Parkside kits for a GWR Beetle prize cattle wagon (which had been fitted with replacement doors that do not have the panelling).  Its been sat on the layout since then awaiting paint….  The sides were given a coat of Vallejo German Cam Brown, the ends and chassis painted black and the roof a mix of my usual grey black weathering shade mixed with the leftover brown.

It now needs a quick dusting of varnish before adding transfers.

The reason it needs the varnish became apperent when working on 7427, while adding the transfers (HMRS) for the buffer beam numbers, I found the microsol I use to soften the transfer and remove the backing film was washing off the water based paint.  (So I am worried about the same happening with the brown on the cattle van).  With the end numbers done I moved on to some weathering, starting with the black areas, before dirtying up the top of the tanks / boiler.  The sides I plan to have relativly clean, but still need further washes applying.  (This has been painted with a mix of grey black, cam brown, black and leather.)