Saturday 10 August 2024

Easy Living - Vacation

After a week in Germany my vacation has now settled into the slow rythm of doing very little in a slow pace. Giving my house a little paint, interrupted by watching the olympics and generally enjoying life with wife and family. A little train running and a start on the cab interior on the Fowler diesel has been added to the few things accomplished. 

Running the Fowler back and forth on a short temporary garden line in front of my garden shed. Very relaxing!

With the help of images and drawings from an article by Bill Strickland in the November 1980 issue of 'Merioneth Mercury' I've begun making interior details for the Fowler cab. I'm just getting started on the brake installation and sand boxes. It's fiddly work and I hope it will be worth the effort. Work on the driver firgure is also under way with intial adjustment to feet and head to fit the cab.

Covering the added exterior details with paint has helped to make the model a little more finished although there is still a lot of work left. I used Vallejo 'Black' to cover bolt heads and profile additions on the frames and an ancient (most likely early 2000's) tin of Humbrol enamel 195 'Dark Green Satin' on the body details fitted. Where I had fitted metal parts I was carefull to prime with enamel paint before the acrylic colour was applied. My experience is that enamel has a stronger 'grip' on bare metal than my favourite acrylic paints.

What a difference a few brush strokes makes! All the exterior detail additions have been painted. The loco will continue to develop in the coming months.

One of my vacation projects actually got finished: the Modelu fox and it even got some publicity on the Modelu Facebook page. The guys at Modelu said nice things about my modelling and provided their audience with a link to this blog. Things like that boost my modelling confidence. Hopefully it will also help the producer to boost sales something we all will benefit from. Notice that I'm no influencer type receiving gifts in return for mentioning producers. My blog is way too obscure and I'm a proud full price paying customer when I shop for my hobby.

My first Modelu animal lifted from the Modelu Facebook page.

2 comments:

  1. Good to see your're putting that 1980 article to good use Claus. You were probably just a young fella when it came out:>)
    Pete

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  2. I was, indeed. I had just turned 11 and was still mostly assembling Airfix planes in dubious quality. I had my first model railway set for Christmas in 1981.

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