Ticking Time Bomb

I've been caught out again by the deadly combination of lead and PVA glue.

This is like a silent killer that lurks within your models, forgotten about, until it slowly, remorselessly, tears it apart.

Such as Himself discovered was happening to my scratch built cherry picker wagon.

I'd forgotten I'd even filled part of the chassis with liquid lead to give it some weight when I built it.

Fortunately, as you can see above, the main body of the wagon has come off in one piece and although the chassis is broken in two pieces it was able to be glued back together.

The wagon is now back in service on Dduallt.

The question is, what other stock is fitted with this kind of time bomb?

Raindrops On Roses

Recently there have been comments that there are not enough pictures of our collection of rolling stock on this blog.

(In fact, for those who care to look, there is a link to archived Model Of The Week posts from a few years back which feature a lot of what we have in our stock boxes.)

However, I thought I would take advantage of a fortnight's enforced separation from the modelling bench to show you a few of my favourite things.

(Have you cottoned onto the title now?)

For me, the most satisfying models are always the ones you've scratch built, because you have the double challenge of working out how to do it and then actually doing it.

It also means you can own unique and obscure models like our version of the FR Cherry Picker wagon.

The bucket at the end of the boom was really difficult to form out of styrene - and it was even more difficult to get it to keep its shape - so I have no hesitation in choosing it as my first favourite thing.