I've noticed a number of posts about motivation on RMWeb recently (here and here, for instance). I've been experiencing a distinct lack of "get up and go" myself where completing the IHA is concerned: since my last blog post I've added the four lettering boards to the sides of the hood, and that's it.

I'm one of those who believes that the problem is that all the jobs at the very end of a project like this don't add that much to the finished model, but their absence would nag at me. The other day I sat down with a photo of the prototype and worked out how many pieces still needed adding to the IHA for it to be complete to a degree that would be acceptable to me:

4x hood operating lever assembly (4 pieces each - 16 in all)

2x upper hook operating bar assembly (5 pieces each - 10 in all)

2 buffer base extensions (for the platform end)

4 buffers

2 ferry tie-down cleat mounting pads

2 ferry tie-down cleats

8 ferry lashing rings

2 brakewheel mounting rods

2 brakewheels

2 raised panels for the underframe sides (to mount the brake valve control levers)

4 brake valve control levers

2x low-level lettering placard assembly (5 pieces each - 10 in all)

end platform

2 end platform supports

2 bogie pivots

2 bogie retainers

2 bogies

That's a total of 73 things to add to get to the point where I think it'll look right (not including the couplers, which I'm still mulling over, and the hooks that hold the hood shut, which I still don't know how to make), and at the end of it all it won't look much more like an IHA than it would if I added just the end platform, the buffers and the bogies. Some of these pieces (17, I think, plus the bogies) are ready made, either etched or moulded; but the majority are very small indeed and will have to be tickled together out of tiny shards of styrene, which probably isn't going to be much fun.

Tonight I'm going to steel myself (appropriately enough) and try to push on as far as possible with getting things fitted.

Jim