I hope everyone had a fantastic Easter weekend. I have been modelling away on a quite a few projects recently and although I have been making some progress, it all feels a little slow and disjointed. In theory I have more time to model nowadays, although in reality progress is somewhat slower than I would like. I currently have a lot of projects on the go and this scattergun process means that attention is somewhat divided between multiple tasks. I spent Easter Monday modelling away on a few projects and I have decided that I need to finish off a set of these current projects before moving ont ..read more

The last few weeks has seen some intermittent, but steady progress on a few O gauge modelling projects. I managed to finish a Slaters Conflat A wagon over the last few weeks and all in all I am pretty happy with it. There was a lot of subtle weathering that I applied to the wagon, which seems to have been lost with the application of transfers and final weathering coats, but overall it look good I think. As per normal it was Railmatch enamels from an irbrush and tranfers are a mixture of Railtec and Fox. Conflat A wagon finished on the test track. Top view showing the weathered wood floor ..read more

I have been building an O gauge layout for at least 3 years now, and frankly progress has been very slow. The layout is all wired up and scenic work has started, however, two house moves in two years has really disrupted progress. The other big limiting factor has been a lack of rolling stock ready to use and completing the fiddle yard for the layout. Well I have partially managed to remedy one part of this equation with the completion of the class 25 detailing project. Weathered and sound fitted class 25 on the test track. The model is the first release of the class 25 by Heljan and I pre-or ..read more

We are still renovating the house and this has really impacted my opportunities to set up my O gauge layout. This is really frustrating as I have several O gauge projects that are nearly complete and I need somewhere to test rolling stock, especially the DCC sound fitting to the O gauge diesels. So over the last week or so I decided to build a small O gauge micro layout/test track. I had a 5ft scenic box that I purchased from Tim Horn several years ago - I had made the box up, but had gone no further. So I dragged this out of the garage and started to arrange some track. I was keen to see what ..read more

The end of 2023 and it has been a quite a year for us. Looking at the amount of modelling done this year is quite disappointing, but this is hardly surprising given we purchased a new house and then set about renovating pretty much all of it - certainly more than we were originally anticipated. However, the majority (not all) of the renovating has been completed downstairs and certainly in 2024 I will have much more time to model and for my other hobbies.  This is a real relief, as the second half of 2023 was a bit of a slog. Anyhow, over the xmas break I slowly started to reawaken the mo ..read more

Modelling has been pretty quiet for me over the last 6 months - hence the lack of updates! We have been busy renovating our house - and there is light at the end of the tunnel. I should be able to get my airbrush up and running again over xmas - ready for the new year. I am also optimistic of a little modelling time over the Xmas hols.  However, until then - I hope everyone has a very merry xmas and lots of train shaped presents ..read more

I have been a bit quiet on updating my blog recently, due to a variety of reasons. There is a lot of renovating on the house going on and this will continue for most of the summer, coupled with a change in my professional life.  This is all great news, as come winter I should have plenty of modelling time, which I am really looking forward too.  I have numerous kits stashed away to build and a number of locomotives that I really need to get around to detailing, however, I never have enough time!  So from November onwards the house will be largely finished and my work commitments ..read more

Recently I have decided to finish off a number of projects that were started a while ago, but have subsequently sat around. I am hoping that over summer I can get the layout set up properly and finally finish the ballasting, add in the backscene and do a lot of the detailing projects, i.e. have a usable model railway. Right now, the O gauge layout has stalled somewhat, after moving house and having to install a new kitchen/diner, etc.  When I finally get around to setting up the layout, I want to be able to add in some of the buildings and then move relatively quickly into adding small de ..read more

Who knows where the time has gone in the last few months - life has been really busy and modelling time has been somewhat limited. The little modelling time I have had, has been spent building some wagons very slowly in the evenings and the odd spray painting session with the airbrush. I currently have a couple of wagons nearly built in O and OO gauge, and a couple of O gauge wagons nearing completion in the paint box.  My biggest challenge right now is to focus on the finishing of some ongoing projects on the O gauge layout, particularly some rolling stock, alongside finishing off some o ..read more

This week I managed to sit down and tackle the install of the class 25 ESU Loksound XL decoder into the class 25. This locomotive has been sat in the paint boxes since last summer, but over the last couple of months I have made a concerted effort to move this model towards completion. One of the big stumbling blocks was the fitting of the DCC sound chip - in OO gauge this is the most simple of tasks - take off the backing plate and put the new chip in - solder up a speaker and you are good to go. In O gauge this was a slightly more daunting task. The factory finished bodyshell - note the end ..read more