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 of the basic scenery detailing and buildings. I have far too many projects half finished and I would like to move at least some of these to the finished pile.
One project that has been ticked off and is now finished is a Slaters 12T box van. My first Slaters kit took me about 6 years to get around to finishing. This 12T van was the second one I did, started in 2020, so a mere 3 years later it is finished. Undoubtedly, I have now become more used to Slaters kits and can get a really good build from them – they are great kits, but they do require a bit of time and patience. This van was painted with Railmatch paints via the airbrush and had Railtec transfers applied. All good and another one finished for the layout. The next one of these I do, I will be a little more adventurous with the painting of the body, adding some in some different coloured planking, however for now this finish is fine.
The layout has made slow (non) progress in recent months, with only a little ballasting being finished. I am still mulling over the tunnel exit and likewise the landscaping at the end of the layout. This all needs a little more thinking about, so next steps are to finish the ballasting nd get the tunnel mouth and embankment at the end of the layout sorted. Once this is done, I can get the backscene in and really start cracking on with the detailing.
