James Hilton

Good luck Chris - although even to a die hard steam fan there must be some alure to the 125 - it has been the mainstay of the Great Western mainline now for my entire lifetime, if not even longer!

Jon - what an interesting an thought provoking blog entry. I am so sorry to hear that the painting, the thing you've been worrying and agonising over, has gone so wrong in your eyes. My experience with some of the Precision paints in the past has been very bad as well - to the point where now I'd always use Railmatch enamels. Not much help now, but if I'd paid attention earlier... oh well, hindsight yada yada. I have used ModelStrip paste in the past as a stripper and it got back to the original finish, but that was many years ago so I'm afraid I can answer about newer products. Leave the model a few weeks, and then re-assess where you want to go... either to 'finish' it with transfers, some matt varnish, weather it and sell it on (on a basic chassis) or strip it and take two - but risk the damage of some of that exquisitely fine detail!

In my modelling career I can think of at least three 'oh s**t' moments in recent years. I can totally sympathise with your experience this weekend. They usually revolve around painting - and can often be 'rescued' but YOU always see the comprimise. I have come to live with these, through the positive praise of other modellers - and the reflection that life is too short... but in the moment, in that split second you either want to laugh, cry or get cross and throw things!! You did the right thing. Cool down and reflect.

For me, that 'reflection', that 'lost mojo', resulted in a complete change in direction. Along with other emotional factors at the time I guess... however I've rediscovered what I loved about railway modelling and that's all that really matters. If it's about slavish attention to detail, beautifully observed weathering, historic research or just capturing an artist impression - reflect what really got you excited about modelling back when you started, strip away the rest, the expectation, the forum etc etc, get back to basics.

I look forward to seeing what you do next - I'm sure I'll find it both interesting and inspiring, like a couple of the other really good blogs on here!

That looks like you did more than pick it up and put it down! It looks excellent

Will I really like that last photo where you get a sense of the landscape you're creating. It's refreshing to see railway modelling in the large scenic sense - compared to what most of us have to resort to in 4mm where you're modelling a strip of railway with very limited landscape. In some ways you get some of this back in the garden (like I have) in the larger larger scales - but I do hanker after a big scenic indoor layout like I grew up with...

However until I sell my weekend car I've not got the garage space!

Will you can definitely NOT tell this is Z scale - excellent work! How wide is the track in Z? Anyway this will be a scenic extravanza! I can't wait to see it develop.

Will it'll definitely be worth it! I look forward to seeing a full train on top of some of the modified track

You seem to have so many projects on the go Paul the question is does it capture your imagination. If it's not fun why do it? However - I think she looks great so far and would be worthy of finishing in a nice NCB livery with stripy buffer beams!

Great to see progress Jon - I think you're giving yourself a hard time in the quest for perfection, those ends looks fine to me

The wheels and gear towers is a nice idea too - that'll give a great dusty apperance, perfect.

Nice and sharp! and tiny!

I love these etched industrial diesel kit blog posts Paul - keep them coming

What livery are you going for? (or have I missed that already)

Wow - great result and very crisp - not something I always associate with paper overlays.

This does seem a particularly effective way of doing things in 2mm

Definitely!

Absolutely incredible. Looking at these photos without the text and background, and given the fine track and wheel standard you could be forgiven for thinking this is 7mm! Exquisite modelling Jon - a real triumph so far, and I hope the paint goes on nicely with less cursing!

Very effective

Great to see progress on these Rich.

Rich - I struggled massively with hinge detail when I built the G-scale engine shed for my garden line - so just ended up doing something quite generic on the doors and didn't bother with making them operational. Good luck on the hunt!

Very effective

Rich - awesome! Is this the first moving model for the project?

That's the great thing about Model Railways - there are so many diversions in the hobby to keep us interested for life. Great to see a different direction Martin, thanks for sharing

Nicely faded Chris - and a it's great to look back and see your weathering progress

Jon - wonderful attention to detail - in some ways I wish I'd progressed my Class 66 project alongside yours as I expect it would have pushed me to include more detail but hey ho...

I look forward to seeing some photos of it in primer!

The Members Day was a good turnout, some good layouts. Personally though, this year I missed the chance to meet a few more people - but that's just a reflection really I think of me spending less time on the forum these days. Had a good chat with Marc Smith, and watched a few of the layouts in operation, watching how things were done. Widnes seemed to be having quite a few issues mind - not sure if this was just usual setup issues, as they'd only setup that morning or if there was more of an issue. Great attention to detail though, the signalling is exquisite.

Anyhow - better get on

It's appeared as a 'entry' on this 'blog'.

Think of your blog as a book - each new entry is a new chapter. Using this link: Granddad gnome's Blog will give you a list of all the chapters, like an index. People can use the 'Add Comment' bit below your entries to ask questions and leave feedback.

This is different to a traditional forum thread, where you just keep adding new material to the bottom of one 'Topic', and newest material is at the end. With a blog, newest material is at the top of the 'index'.

Does that help?

Hi there - you need to create a new blog entry for each 'chapter' in your story so that you can attach photos, and then insert them into the text. You can't attach photos in the same way in these 'comments' boxes. I look forward to reading more soon!

It might be worth considering writing these down in a traditional thread in the Outdoor section of the forum if you're more familiar with that rather than blogs. However if you want to continue here and need some further help happy to give some advice as I use the blogs on here quite a lot

Just noticed this one Chris - it's also worth 'narrowing' the fuel tanks and if you can get them, getting the correct tanks from Howes - available as a Heljan spare part for a few quid.