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As per the title! I'll bung this in a new products thread too. Please rate and share if it appeals to you.

Have had a bit of a modelling spurt and finished off 1454. Should be released to the operating department for Wheal Elizabeth's forthcoming appearance at the Sodbury Vale show on 31 January (though what the engine is doing in that part of Cornwall is anyone's guess...). Minion will be making it debut too. Hmm note to self, must build a new stock box. Anyhoo, the numberplates and smokebox plates were attached with Johnsons Klear and the final details (buffers, couplings, balance weights etc have been added). Cab glazing is acrylic filed to fit and fixed with Klear. Engine was given a few coats of the same before the transfer was added and sealed with (you've guessed it...). Incidentally, what I'm going to do when I get through my bottle I've no idea. Answers on a postcard please. I've discovered Testor's spray laquer which I think finishes things off rather nicely. The T9 got the same treatment and I must profess to being impressed with the stuff. I'm really rather pleased with how this engine has turned out given I've had it for over 30 years. Another ling term project realised from the depths of the modelling cupboard. I'll turn my attention to the Airfix A30 autotrailer now and post progress once there is any. Underframe's kind of finished, but it needs a bit of adjustment before I can get one of the bogies back on (ahem).

Well the promise in the last blog entry of having "....a couple of things to post in the coming days" didn't come off in the way that I expected. Instead I fell into a work (Aerospace Engineering) vortex that chewed me up and only spat me out long after the Xmas break in 2014. Following this hiatus, where I effectively lost most of my winter modelling time, it has been hard to find the enthusiasm for a number of modelling projects, both personal and on commission. Through April and May I took a long hard look at the things on my list and have decided that I'm going to have to be pragmatic about what I can and cannot do. I'm getting to that time in my life when I realise that I'm not going to live forever. Quite selfishly, and perhaps with a narrowing of horizons, I want to build some of my own models. In future commission work is only going to be taken on if the task ticks a few fundamental boxes. It must really interest me either due to the subject matter or in a way that challenges/extends my skill as a craftsman, designer and engineer. In the case of the latter if I can utilise some of the spin offs from it, for instance a casting master, for my own projects then so much the better. So in the spirit of that I'd like to show a few pictures of a loco commission that is very nearly complete. It's unsual as I've never done any modelling in this gauge before, although it is P4. The kit is supplied by the Broad Gauge Society and on the whole has built into a nice model of a handsome prototype. There are a few issues that are being fed back to the BGS for inclusion in their instructions but nothing that is insummountable. The painting is still to come and that will also be a first as I've never done Early GWR livery before. Cheers....Morgan

The only damage suffered by carefully packing my Jinty (named Dobbin) in bubble wrap for a long journey on Monday was that the two crew members came loose and arrived "on the floor" of the cab. I had simply glued their boots to the cab floor and this was not enough to withstand the baggage handlers' hard work. So I have thought about drilling out their legs and fitting 1mm wire that can be glued into holes drilled where they stand (for eternity) in the cab. There are several other items that could be worked on before the weekend visit to Hillingdon. We'll see if they can be done but as it is the Jinty should be roadworthy. I have also promised to take something exotic to Hillingdon Track Open Day on December 19th. If I can get to our storage unit I could load up some H0 freight stock and add them to an Athearn Genesis SP Mountain MT-4. This is an MT-4 without the later fitting of an airline casing that was an attempt to make the 4-8-2s look faster than they really were. But they were still great locomotives, albeit in the shadow of the GS 4-8-4s.

Well we all want our locos to progress slowly - on the track though and not on the build! Well hopefully the rather slow progress of this project (18 months and counting!), will reflect in a slow and reliable progress on the track. Now, all was going well and had taken measurements from the original chassis for the cylinder mountings and had drilled and tapped these - Ok, spot what is wrong; One clue is that it is not that the firebox is on the outside of the cab but you should be looking a bit above the cylinders. Yes, the steam chest in no shap or form lines up. I have taken some consolation in the fact that I would have faced this problem even if I had used the original chassis but am suprised that I have not found mention of this rather big error in the kit anywhere else. The problem lies in that I had fitted the firebox on the inside of the cab sheet which was not an unreasonable asumption as there was no hole big enough for it to pass through. It then became aparent that half of the firebox casting had to fit through the front sheet which meant quite a lot of cutting and fileing. One result of this was that the hacking around I had done on the end of the boiler to make it fit the new larger motor was now both redundant and ugly. Time for some reconsructive surgery in the form of the soldering iron and many blobs of solder and much work with a file to get the whole mess looking back to something like it did before; So here it all is now lining up nicely; And again getting a bit of exercise on the rolling road. Note that I have also fitted the couplings so having already done the pick ups that is two out of three of theworst jobs done, now the valve gear........ In other news, I should be picking up the Alco chassis this week and have a lovely slot of home alone between Christmas and New Year to hopefully make some significant progress on the bodywork. That other big project of the Iz Shed is now pretty much finished with an Ebay bargain of desk and chair filling it nicely. Am not too keen on putting mains electricity in there so am about to wire up a solar panel to a car battery and a 12volt LED caravan light so the shed will be green in more ways than one!