Made in the Isle of Wight

Resting in the siding at Catcott and fresh off the modelling bench, is this delighful resin based kit from the Isle of Wight based 'Smallbrook Studio' depicting a 10 ton LSWR brake van.

I'll be covering the contruction of this in a future edition of Hornby Magazine.

Rosebay Willow Herb

With Rosebay Willow Herb blowing in the summer breeze by drain at Catcott, Mickey Mouse tank No. 41248 trundles past the crossing with an empty perishables train from Templecombe to Bason Bridge.......

Cinnabar Red

Here we go - after a couple of days blasting around the country snapping trainsets and a few beers with mates in the northwest, this afternoon at home, the Ian Kirk 51' LNER full brake received a coat of 'Carmine' (British Leyland MG Metro Cinnabar Red), some numbers, weathering (dry brush and washes - not too much for this) and a top coat 'Krylon Matte Finish' via aerosol (Search Ebay for a good supplier). To be added: vacuum pipes, scratch built fom some brass wire wound with a single fine strand of stripped layout electrical wire are drying on the workbench after their top coat of matt black. That will just leave screw couplings to source next time I find a proper model railway shop.

Building a 1970's style kit.........

OK, moving on, in my quest to improve, introduce and upgrade some of my steam era stock before Catcott Burtle' s next outing at RAILEX next May......

Here we have coffee table job (note the hot pepper sauce for the boy and handcream for her indoors on the left) bought last weekend at WycRail, an Ian Kirk, aka Coopercraft LNER 51' 1-1/2" Full Brake is now on the modelling bench. This item of stock will form part of a milk and or perishables consist.

The basic body, roof and ends are great! The underframe, bogies and such are very flaky misaligned tired mouldings sadly in black (grrr, so they're tricky to tidy and assemble 'cos they're difficult to see the relief on - 'grey is the only way' don't you know?) and needed a bit of beefing up here and there to ensure they'll last more than 3 minutes.

Here we are so far awaiting a few more additional bits in the neither regions. The lower detailing was all a bit of guesswork, the instructions being more like a secret quiz that only the writer/designer understands. Anyway, got there in the end even, if I did replace the battery boxes with something more useable (block of foamboard)! The body will be lined maroon (Halfords British Leyland Damask). Sourcing pics has been a tad tricky despite looking all over the place (bar actually buying the recommended book 'LNER Gresley Carriages' which is unlikley to see much further use).
Numbers indicated on the paperwork suggest various from 70070 up to 70564 depending on versions. I guess for BR days one would put an 'E' on either end of this?

The Art of Illusion Without Photoshop

I have a job next week to photograph 60 or so OO gauge locos. So, rather than use a length of Peco like everybody else on a bit curled up white paper, I used a sheet or two of foamboard, a length of C&L and some spare Silfor grass matting, carpet underlay, hanging basket liner and various dyed sawdusts. This all combined has hopefully resulted in a niftly display photo platform which also gave me the chance to mess about testing out some autumnal looking scenics.

Here you see the result of about 6 hours work. Oh yes, the print is one of my skies run off to 20x30 inches at Photobox online lab, which means no need to mess about with jiggery pokery adding skies and such 'cos everything can be done in camera - result?