Graham T

So, I finally got all the drilling done for the roof vents. The instructions called for cutting 0.5 mm wide lengths from a sheet of thin styrene, included in the kit, for the rain strips. But this proved to be beyond me. The styrene worked okay for the water tanks, but whenever I tried to cut such thin strips they just curled up like springs, and were unusable. The nearest I had was some 0.75 mm strip, so I've tried using that, and then sanding it down afterwards, but I think it's still overscale. I've got some 0.5 mm strip on order, so I think I'll remove the existing ones and replace them. The roof isn't fixed in place yet, of course.

Looks interesting. I hope your son is enjoying it!

Quite possibly Andy, yes. Haven’t decided yet.

I fitted the corridor partition this morning, using Glue and Glaze. There's a bit of interior paintwork to be touched up here and there. Next step is to drill the holes for the roof vents, which is taking some time...

Thanks again Neal. As you may know, patience is not my strong point, so I went ahead with a combination of what you were able to tell me, some reference photos, and what the instruction sheet provided (that's where the green seats came from). I could repaint the offending parts, but with even just the roof put in place, it's hard to see the interior; once the sides are on as well I don't think anybody is going to notice. And there are sure to be lots of other inaccuracies anyway!

Fettling the compartment partitions until the roof was a good fit took quite a while... I found a photo of a preserved toplight (though without the corridor partition), so have - sort of - taken the colours from that. My rendition is (a) slapdash and (b) probably too bright, but I think once the sides and roof are on it shouldn't matter... The ends still need lamp irons and handrails adding, but they are too fragile to put on yet, I think.

Looking good. I think you'll be pleased with the stuff from MBR.

Oh yes - what colour would the floor be?

Thanks Neal. I'm not worried about being too accurate, as you won't be able to see much of it anyway! (And there's no guarantee yet that I'll be able to build the coach well enough to run it on the layout either...) The kit does include the partition, which is I guess a mahogany-ish colour. So, royal blue for the third seats. What about the first? What is the gold for?

I got all the interior partitions and seats assembled today, and have just finished installing them. I think some trimming and fettling will be required to allow the roof to fit properly. That will be a job for tomorrow. I also need to figure out what colours to paint the interior; @Neal Ball could you give me some pointers please? I know that third and first class seats are different colours (blue and green respectively I think?) but am not sure about the floor and wall colours. It's probably about time that I gave the workbench another blitz, by the look of things.

But at least it’s not very expensive - oh, hang on… (I do appreciate that you’ll be getting a lot of loco for your money though)

A little more progress with the toplight. I've finished the second end and trimmed the corners of the aluminium roof. I was pleased to find that everything more or less fits together, so far. The instructions call for adding all the underfloor detail early on in the build, but I'm leaving those for now as I'm pretty sure I'd just break them when bodging other bits of the kit. I did make a start on the bogies, but don't have any low melt solder to fix the brass frame to the whitemetal side castings; I suppose I could use CA gel, but I wonder if it will give a strong enough bond? So next step will probably be to do the interior.

Very nice, I do like the small Prairies. And as ever I have to admire how your trackwork looks John!

Lovely set of photos there Rob, thank you!

Yes, that’s what I’ve gone for. The gel seems to work better for this.

For a change of pace I've made a start on one of the Wheeltapper toplight kits. Blimey. Did somebody say challenging? I already managed to make a snafu of the supplied floor, so have had to make a replacement. So far I've got one end finished and fixed to the floor along with the aluminium extrusions that make up the solebars (?) and the lower part of the coach sides. The corridor connections are made up of some flexible black plastic, embossed to show the framing, that you have to cut out and then fix to the etched brass outer end frame. That was a barrel of laughs as you can imagine. I couldn't get the inner face to hold its shape, so added some plasticard stiffeners on the inside; hopefully they won't show once it's all painted black. The other difficulty has been in finding the best adhesives to use. I have some UHU contact adhesive, which would probably be good for some of the parts, but it refuses to come out of the tube without leaving seemingly endless strings of glue everywhere. The kit uses plastic (of various kinds), aluminium, etched and turned brass, and whitemetal - so getting all those to stick to each other has driven me slightly batty.

Good news Jonathan. Keeping everything crossed here!

Thanks Clive. It is indeed modelled on Rowden Mill, a lovely little building that's been preserved as holiday lets. The platform brickwork is just some Scalescenes papers. Watch this space for CR Mk II! If it turns out as planned I will have to make a new station building, as I don't think this one will be big enough...

I did tinker with it a little bit Andy, but without a great deal of success so far. It really is something that I should try to get my head around.

There was a rare and welcome ray of sunshine here this morning, so I took a quick snap of the station building.

Thanks for that MIB. When I dug mine out of the cupboard for Remembrance I found that the glue used in the court mounting has discoloured some of the ribbons, which is a pain. Unfortunately I can't remember who I got to do the court mounting now, otherwise I'd ask them to put it right. I think getting them re-mounted would be pretty expensive...

The one I'd really like is the one with the side windows in the cab. Is that the 43xx or 93xx? The latter I think?

Tell me why...

I do like those Moguls. I'm tempted to get another one, but the bank account says no!

Nicely done. I have one that needs similar treatment!