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I've finished a couple of projects. The Tau you have all become tired of; And the Miles Magister I've mentioned in passing here and again; I could likely have finished the Magister some time ago. I was more concerned with finishing the Tau and clearing them off of my bench. Finishing two projects means returning to another. I have started painting the Infinity JSA; The included tutorial was unclear about what needed what color. Also, the tutorial only covered one type of model specifically. I'll need to try and find guides for the rest. We'll see as time wears on.

In order to establish just how much grease needed to be removed, the chassis keeper plate was unscrewed and the result was: All this was tackled with a cocktail stick and some clean paper towels. Even though lots og grease was removed, there was still a plentiful layer left to lubricate all the moving parts. I thought I'd better check the top end of the transmission mechanism as well, and found this: Back to work with the cocktail stick and paper towels.

Recently I have been keeping an eye on the rather tasty looking PEP series 3d printed kits on ebay, over time I have watched the quality improve throughout the listings, and following a topic on this forum where a class 313 from this range was built , I decided to take the plunge and do a 508. The kits are available by 'Modernmultipleunits2019' on ebay - give it a search! First to note is the product came very well packaged which is always a good start. Each bodyshell comes in 3 sections (end, middle, end) - it is a 3 coach train so 9 body pieces in total. Also included are bogie sideframes and the bodyfloors complete with predrilled holes for bogie mounting and a bigger removable chunk on the centre coach for a motor bogie (designed to work with the newer Hornby 153/6 bogies and motors). I had a go at assembling the body shells last night. First thing to note is a bit of sanding and fiddling is involed to get them to fit - of course there are some rough edges from the printing process which need smoothing down. I also found the roof mounted glueing strips are too big and push the roof up too high in some cases, however I believe the 2 middle sections for my motor coaches wern't HD prints, whereas the trailer coach was which fit like a dream. I decided to completely remove this roof support anyway. According to the seller if I have understood the description correctly, it will soon be availabe as whole solid bodyshells which dont come in 3 parts. Obviously its not a perfect fit, filler is needed to make the joins seemless but overall so far I am impressed. In some cases the base of the bodypart were different widths, so a quick measure of the chassis/floor width and cutting some strong card to size helped stretch them out to the correct width to fit. My progress so far is posted here. I am going to invest in some filler this afternoon and will post my results in due course. I havnt bought the etched window frames or undercarriage components yet as the mrs would probably have a fit, so it will be a slow build from start to finish and also my first attempt at a kit built. Hopefully this will help people understand what the kit is like and help influence a decision. Fingers crossed it turns out well!

For a layout set in 1970, Templefield has been sadly lacking my favourite locomotive; the ubiquitous class 47. The hole in my loco stable was recently filled by a Bachmann 47 in the perfect livery for the era, and one that suits these locos superbly, two tone green with full yellow ends. Lovely as it is, there is no way the livery would have been as immaculate as the factory finish and so, some gratuitous "filthying" needed to happen. The loco was dismantled, windows removed, metal handrails removed and headcode masked. The body and underframe was hit with humbrol acrylic matt spray. This is to create a "tooth" for the weathering powders to adhere to. Powders are lightly brushed onto the body with a fine brush areas according to photographs of the class at this time period. The roof was completely covered with humbrol smoke, obliterating the green. The whole lot is fixed with a mist of matt spray but great caution is required. Never spray in the cold!!!!

Evening folks, Here are the concluding stages of some painting and weathering I have been working on. Again, as with my quick and dirty weathering blogs, I do not own an airbrush and have endeavoured to produce something comparable to the results one can get with an airbrush (but acknowledging the superiority of the airbrush). Here is the wagon painted using different tones and modelmaster decals added. I use decalfix by humbrol to silvering as I didn't want to gloss varnish the vehicle as I felt the subtlety of some of the planks would be lost glossing then matting. Next, the wagon is treated with decalfix and weathering powders, flowed around the raised detail. This is the shock open I have also been treating. certain planks were dry brushed with humbrol stone to suggest worn paint and the grain of the wood. The metal work on the end of the wagon are treated with heavier amounts of powders to suggest the flaking, rusty metal work. These are dabbed onto wet decalfix and built up using humbrol smoke powder and Carr's rust colours. The underframe is lightly treated with brake dust colour powders. The top plank on the wagon was done by dry brushing onto wet tacky paint to maintain the brushstrokes to give the appearance of the grain of bare wood. This has been an enjoyable little project.

This afternoon I have continued to experiment with Peco platform faces, faced with slaters brick embossed plasticard and the platform surfaces being Wills sheets. progress looks to be promising The Wills sheets need the joins hiding, I have had a go with a couple using Milliput, seems to be OK. I was going to have the second platform a bit shorter, but decided to have both the same length. at a rough calculation I need another 3 packs of paving As I said I will kitbash a couple of Ratio station buildings, a quick look at the parts I have from 2 kits top will be the front of the station building facing the forecourt, next the same building facing the buffer stops, second from bottom will be the rear of the platform building. botton the front of the platform building. all of these will need a lot of butchery. With the 2 kits I have 2 station canopies, I have worked out I will need at least 3, last night I bought another station building kit for the price of a canopy kit Initially I was not going to model the rear of the platform building, but as you see I am not far off having enough parts to build all 4 facings. Last night I bought another station building kit for the price of a canopy kit, this not only gives me another canopy but additional sections to play with, not only to fill the missing facing but it may also give me some more options on the other wall. Still looks like it will need a lot of surgery and filler.

As I was working yesterday I had a late start today, first I looked at as many photos of Bodmin General station as I could just to get the general arrangement of the building with doors and window placement just to see how I can kitbash a couple of Ratio stations into a similar size and style, certainly not an exact replica I have started to lay the trackbed with 3mm closed cell foam from C&L next up is to build the platform. I will be using Peco platform edging. Rather than use the brick paper in the packs, I will use brick embossed plasticard. For the platform surface I am thinking of using Wills sheets Next up will be to work out the platform height Also I will need to work out the final position of the crossover, temporarily I am using 00 track and stock either side of the crossover to check lengths

Still working on the terrain around the station end of my module two. After I took another look behind the down line signal box and the Carlisle waiting room it was obvious that the access road level was below the platform and not up level with it. So out came the contract filler and poly offcuts to remedy the situation which meant that the water supply tower for the railway cottages and station buildings needed to be built while raising the existing embankment height. As there’s no immediate dimensions readily available for these water supply towers, I needed to examine several photos to make my best guess at its size. This being a 55 square x 20 mm deep tank mounted on a 52 square x 95 mm high pedestal base. The access ladder will be added when I next place an order from the UK. I spent the next two days making the tower out of 1.5 mm card while also modifying the terrain to suit it. The results are in the pictures folks. Phil

Evening folks, Completed a couple of Parkside opens recently and took a few pictures of the painting process. It has involved a few techniques i have read about and a bit of experimentation. The wagon is primed using halfords grey Matt spray, the body brush painted with phoenix precision pre 1964 bauxite, thinned right down. I paint the underframes humrol dark grey 34. I used humbrol stone colour, humbrol light grey and humbrol black to pick out the bare wood planks and a mix of different humbrol browns and reds to vary the plank colours suggesting fading. The bare plank mix is dry brushed (more like scrubbed) over some of the planks to suggest flaking paint and ware.