Daniel W

Captain, you are what the yoof would refer to as "an absolute madlad"!

About the Ratio open, is it still unfitted? If it is there's no need for the tiebar between the w-irons. They only show up on fitted wagons with RCH style brake gear. Clasp brakes don't have tiebars and neither do unfitted wagons.

D'oh, thanks for pointing that out. Yes its still unfitted, I was going to built it with vac-brakes but unfitted made more sense, fortunately I can just snip it off.

i quite like the look of the primer showing through on the inside

The Halfords's primer does give you a real safety net if you are not a very thorough airbrusher (like me).

I wouldn't worry too much about the triangles Barry, a lot of the wagons seem to be missing them in the steam era.

The 24.5 tonners look particularly good Barry, lots of coal grime!

These are absolutely fantastic, the second one in 'rust livery' is particularly good. I've been detailing a couple of the old Cambrian kits in 4mm, but ultimately I think only brass can do justice to ballast hoppers like this.

I do have a fondness for these locos and Mr Thompson's detailing parts certainly make a difference to the old Dapol Model. George Dent actually wrote an Austerity detailing article in MR a couple of months back, very interesting stuff, although he didn't go so far as to build RT's replacement chassis. He has posted quite a bit about that project on his blog, if you are interested.

Dat ass bunker..........

You sir have excellent taste in literature!

I am partial to a drop of Harvey's Bristol Cream, might see if I can get one of these off ebay for the craic. Assuming things don't escalate to silly ebay madness prices.

I can't believe I did not get this at all, I love the Rocketeer!

I'm quite intrigued by the replacement planks. Could you perhaps go into more detail about how you did them?

Obviously all that practice painting unclean heretical tanks paid off! I read somewhere, that mixing talc into rust coloured paint can be used to create ready-to-brush textured rust, not tried it myself though.

I do like the rust effect on the roof, the concrete looks good too.

Looks a bit like the Angel of the North.........

Thanks for responding nonetheless. This method of cobbling interests me, because here in the North most cobbles tend to be of the rounded, non-uniform type and would therefore be a nightmare to scribe by hand.

I admire your patience Cap, all that scribing would drive me insane. I have one question though, is the scribing done by hand or do you use a ruler?

Thanks for the advice Paul, I've got an MRD Iron Mink Roof somewhere round here with bloody tons of rivets to do.

I recently purchased a Gravity Rivetter from Eileen's, mostly for Etched Detailing bits. I probably won't get round to using it for a while though, sticking to some of the easy builds I have for now.

I also quite enjoyed this 'bookazine', its really made me want to start on some etched or whitemetal kits. Now I just have to stop buying plastic kits..................

I fancy getting a lab coat for airbrush and aerosol work, if I can find a suitably stylish one. Although, I can see the benefit of the Tabard.