Bryn

Short answer, no. The HEA is a difficult wagon to model for various reasons. The model produced by Graham Farish was one of the first wagons made in China after the sale of the company to Bachmann. It's very crude detail and lack of any underframe discharge doors doesn't help. Under the MEA the chassis doesn't look as bad. Drop in replacement wheels might work as a quick fix. You could machine out the Farish chassis to accept etched W irons and use the Association whitemetal castings for the Bruninghaus spring with roller bearing. A few people, including myself, have done this with the Farish TTAs before the Stephen Harris kit was available. This gets rid of the horrible low relief suspension details of the Farish mouldings and allows the use of 12.25mm axles. Sadly now out of production is the Taylor Precision Models HEA kit which used to fit a heavily modified Peco chassis. In my opinion this was a better alternative to the Farish model.

Experimenting with oil paints on an old detailed Farish TTA. The paint has the linseed leached by placing it in card for a hour or so before use, then applied by brush and thinned where required.

This seasons project was a rake of Stephen Harris 45T tanks. Various types of walkways and chassis details. The blue parts are custom 3D prints from Missy from my own art work.

First pass of weathering going onto the Stephen Harris mermaid kit this evening. Oil paint rendering over the top of a sprayed acrylic base coat.

Phil, I had a chat with Stephen last night and can now confirm the following; - Mermaids have been out of stock in the Association shop due to the contracted caster being temporarily unavailable. A new batch of kits are currently on the way to the Association shops. - Dogfish are available from Stephen directly and he has some in stock. Everyone else, From the list of kits in the link below Stephen can supply kits which don't include castings directly by calling him on the phone number provided. Kits with resin parts require a minimum quantity order to justify a fresh run, hence why the Mermaid kit is now stocked by the association rather than Stephen having to keep stock himself. If you are interested in a resin kit please speak to Stephen about current options. http://www.2mm.org.uk/small_suppliers/stephenharris/index.htm

I stand corrected, it isn't currently a listed product. I might have been told some dud information or it has been removed.

Weekend build progress. This is the start of a mermaid ballast wagon, etched from 0.25mm nickel silver sheet material with a cast resin body. Kit designed by Stephen Harris and available from from 2mm Scale Association.

.... and the other pair from the Revolution trio. Rust patches on the last tank was created by applying neat acrylic with a sponge, the rest of the weathering was brush applied oils.

Another play with oil paint rendering for weathering. This time on a rewheeled N gauge 36T class B tank from Revolution. Two more to go...

This time a repaint of a Stephen Harris 21T mineral which I built 11 years ago. I was wasn't happy with the old Maskol rust technique it was redone with chipping fluid and oil paints. And here are my 3 recent projects in an arty shot on Colwyn Bay Goods.

As promised;

I've not made an etched kit for a long time, so what better excuse to dust off the RSU than to put together one of Stephen Harris' kit for the 13T All Steel High. http://www.2mm.org.uk/small_suppliers/stephenharris/index.htm The etched contains everything except; vacuum cylinder, wheel sets, axle boxes and buffers. An interesting process is making the chain link dimples in the side of some wagon diagrams. This involves a 1mm punch and a sandwich of etched jigs, very well though out. Transfers are from fox and the base paint was Tamiya acrylics. This was then sealed in with matt varnish. The weather was built up in layers using various paints and the majority is done with brush work.

A recent build of a Stephen Harris 13T LNER High Steel kit. I'll do a write-up for the blog when I finish weathering the underframe.

More playing with oil paints, this time to add dust effects to a pair of Stephen Harris catfish. I think I need to build up some different colour layers but it's a promising start.

Some oil paint weathering this afternoon on the old ambulance shed for Colwyn Bay Goods.