This weekend marked the 30th anniversary of the Missenden Abbey Railway Modellers weekends, I have only been going for a fraction of that time, and my son Daniel even less, but off we trotted on Friday afternoon for the now familiar routine of a weekend of uninterrupted modelling at Missenden.

This time my Mallard Duke made a second appearance, all started well until I realised that the motor and gearbox choice I had made was not going to fit within the confines of the firebox and boiler. So I wasn't able to proceed with fixing the firebox, boiler and smokebox to the footplate and cab that I had prepared at the event in October. Despite the intervening time, I actually managed to do the sum total of no work to my Duke between these two weekends - I had been either finishing my 72xx or distracted by other things. This is the advantages of the Missenden weekend, as well as having plenty of help and advice on hand, you just do not have the same distractions as working at home on a project.

I satisfied myself with building a number of components that can be added to the model once the motor and gearbox have been replaced with a new one, probably High Level, the will push the motor forwards and clear the cab interior.

I was particularly pleased to have formed the firebox and the complex curve on the smokebox. The boiler overlay on the boiler tube was soldered into place courtesy of Bob Alderman's blow torch, another tool I need to get myself.

A number of overlays have been added to the footplate valances and the front bogies was made up of 21 pieces, with some very small overlays that took ages to get lines up, and in the end are covered by the spring hangers!

Daniel and a good weekend working on the running of his GEM Prince of Wales and building the complete tender and tender chassis over the course of the weekend. I think he particularly enjoyed hacking out vast amounts of white metal in order to get the tender chassis to fit onto the body. A technique he picked up from our tutor for the weekend, Tim Shackleton. It is amazing that both the body and the chassis are from the same manufacturer, yet if you try to attach the body to the chassis the ride height is about 1cm too high.

It may not seem like much to show for Friday evening, all day Saturday and Sunday morning, but it was actually a fair few modelling hours, and above all lots of time in the company of fellow modellers swapping tips, views and general comments. Over the 3 years I have been going to these events I have picked up a fair number of tips, met some great people and had an enjoyable time, hopefully they will continue for many years to come.

Now the question is, will any work get done to the Duke before the next Missenden weekend in October?