57xx

Not so, white brake handles were around long before WW2. The GWR were doing it in the 1920's, and while not comprehensively on every wagon, there are plenty of pics about of both LMS and LNER wagons with white handles in the mid-late 1930s.

Hi polybear, the ones in the pic were all done in my acrylic phase. I used Games Workshop colours as shown below. I've just realised a couple of colours are missing, the wonderfully named Bestial Brown which is darker/browner than any of the above (not used it since the very early builds in my thread, I find it too dark) and BoltGun Metal to get a silvery finish on some of the wagons. The colours below are in my current palette of enamels; Humbrol 34 White Revell 76 Light Grey Humbrol 64 Light Grey Humbrol 28 Camouflage Grey Revell 99 Aluminium Humbrol 83 Ochre Humbrol 121 Pale Stone Humbrol 71 Oak I always now try for a much lighter effect, the dark washes used to get the gaps in the plank to show up will tone down the lightness. HTH.

My sub £40 dream was optimistic then, but I was on the money for low £40s

Could you just Photoshop the handrails on?

Rumour has it , they have already advanced thru CAD to EP stage for their own track rubber. Lets hope they get the colour right, as that will define which of the two products will win this war vs Hornby. OR's track record on getting colours accurate isn't great though, so lets wait and see.

I would dispute that they are "next to useless" - I have an "audible only" alarm that prevented anything being stolen during a break in at my home. The intruder broke in through a window, stepped straight into the detection zone of one of the sensors and fled immediately when the sounder went off, despite many things of value being within easy grabbing distance.

Those specs are specifically for LMS, not BR Bauxite. They are from the LMS 1935 painting schedule. Is there any corroboration is there for that? (other than repeated internet hearsay) Not the paint specs above.

Expensive? They are sub £50 RRP, street price would most likely be low £40s maybe even sub-£40. Compared with the £70 RRP autocoach from Bachmann, this seems to be a very good price to me given the level of detail evident on the pics.

The cab shutters were one of the first things I noticed. Given both the CAD and EP have the no bunker step version with the cab shutters on, I think you may be disappointed.

Mmm very nice! Now the $1m question... Do I need them, or just want them...

That will depend on if you saw it in the same month. There's a new one created every synodic month.

Trev, you are a classic example of what raymw was wittering on about. Clearly you were asking the wrong question and should have been asking about crank phasing, not thread sizes.

Heat build up potentially melting sleepers, I beleive. On uses, they are great for polishing up cast buffer heads - pop the buffer in the Dremel chuck and apply a bit of fine wet and dry for a few seconds.

This is the key learning point here. Never be tempted to rush things and use a heavy coat. Multiples thin coats are always better, no runs and no obscuring of detail.

Can't say I've noticed that. My eye is always drawn to the sunken number plates and seamless blend of the dome into the boiler casing. At that point I have to look away.

I think I can help you with the first one...

I thought it, you said it. Certainly won't miss the cantankerous side of him.

Care to elaborate?

For paint fading, I found a vid on Youtube ages ago (sorry. can't find it again!) that showed how to use Gouache to fade stock. A very thin dilution of white gouache using Mircosol (seems to make the wash flow way better than using plain water) is simply brushed over the model. If the effect is too heavy, it is very easy to take off using neat microsol on a brush. You could probably use a homebrew thinners of water with some flow improver instead of microsol, but I've not tried that out.

DCC giraffe and a pint of froth.

I usually fill the envelopes with all the other bit of junk coming through the door. If they're feeling peckish when they open the envelope they will have a choice of takeaways to choose from and a taxi firm if they are out of the delivery area and want to go and collect.

The Dean Goods is coming on well Mikkel. Although, it looks more like a scratchbuild than a conversion with the amoutn of work you've done.

My paint mixer has a slightly bigger battery... A releasable cable tie holds the tinlet in the U, never had any problem with one flying out. It does a very thorough job.

It's not coloured as in colourised like the old postcards, it just had a colour cast corrected, completely different things.

Just in case anyone has missed Ian's main thread in Kitbuilding, orders are now being taken for etches/kits. If you've not already had a PM from Ian, please get hold of him ASAP so as not to miss out!