The progress with the J10 is a long way from making me happy but also this week I have been saddened by being told of the death of two modelling friends - Malcolm Crawley and Tom Harland. That is another unpleasant fact related to age, you loose old friends at a greater rate than you make new ones and you attend more funerals than weddings and christenings. RIP my friends.

The progress with the J10 is that I’m now back to where I was a few weeks ago. Four of the enlarged splashers are fixed and looking OK – BUT!

Exactly as before, when I got to fitting the part splashers against the cab spectacle plate, to have the needed clearance means that these need to be larger than photographic evidence seems to suggest. The reason is almost certainly that the drawing I made ‘way back when’, has yet another error. Either the cab side sheet is not wide enough (i.e. cab too short) thereby putting the spectacle plate too far back, or I have the chassis fixings slightly out of kilter.

Either cause means a depressing amount of “un-modelling†in order to allow the rear splashers to match what photographic evidence seems to suggest. If it’s the chassis fixings, then rather than body modification, it means new chassis spacers front and back which in turn means a total chassis un-assembly, and this I would only do with great reluctance because the current chassis runs so smoothly. (“It ain’t broke; don’t mend it!â€). A suitable body modification would need either a total strip down and making a new running plate, or, if I have the wrong size for the cab side plates, then that needs a cab strip down, new side plates with an awkwardly shaped cut out, beading and main, vertical handrails to make and assemble. Which ever is chosen I’m back to where I was in mid to late October!

So the majority of this weeks modelling has been in my head! My desire to only produce accurate reproductions of the real thing but at a linear scale of 76.2:1, is fighting my thoughts that if I carry on and make part-splashers which give running clearance on my model, then those splashers will be more like a scale of 60:1 But very few people will have sufficient knowledge of J10s to realise the error. The decision is not yet made but I have parts prepared for a B1, two V2s, two C13s, a Q4 and an N5. In addition I have two RTR models of L1s and one O4 that need conversion. There’s also a few wagon kits need assembling and I should not forget that this blog is supposed to be about building a light-weight exhibition layout, not locos and stock! Progress and accept oversize (probably?) splashers is currently very attractive.

None the less, I have decided not to make any firm decision about the J10 for a week or so and a bit of horticulture may help the “little grey cells†recuperate from all this bad news. I have now mowed the lawn, disinfected the green house, turned on the under-soil heating of the greenhouse seedbed and retrieved the propagators from storage. But you don’t come here to read that do you?

Normal service will return as soon as possible. (Oh no! even that statement shows my age. Put up the test card some one quick!)

Dave