It's Fine

Himself has made a start at the second attempt at lining out Welsh Pony in its devilishly ornate livery.

This task required reserves of courage, determination and patience to be stockpiled before setting out!

He's using the lining components sheets we had supplied for us and has begun with the impossibly small orange line, and its black border, around the outside of the panels.

There's still some tidying up of the corners to be done - an enlargements like this are very unforgiving - but I think it's encouraging progress.

He tells me the curved line around the front of the saddle tank was particularly challenging.

Still, at least he's got something to keep him occupied during the inevitable January lockdown......

King Of The Castle

The rebuild of Welsh Pony - being steamed for the first time in 80 years today - may have been protracted, but the build of our 2nd Conway Castle runs it pretty close!

The sticking point - excuse the pun - has been the lining.

Himself was never quite happy with the first effort but it's taken a number of years to summon the motivation to rip it off and have another go.

The complicating factor is that it's two thin lines together.

The solution he reached in the end was to begin with a thick line of cream / yellow - if you call 0.75mm thick? - and secure that with a coat of varnish.

Then on top of that he's laid a 0.35mm green line, all complicated by the need to form the 'whiskers' on the front and back.

I think it's looking rather good, and after many years on the back-burner it should be racing to completion now.

Twins

The painstaking job of applying the intricate Pullman livery to 152 has begun.

We use the 4mm Fox waterslide range - it’s probably ever so slightly over-scale but the quality and ease of use compensates for that.

Himself is complaining that it’s a little harder to fit the upright arrows on the window pillars this time.

As the casting is the same one we used for 150 I think the chances are this batch of transfers has been printed slightly larger.

He also tells me policemen are getting younger, too 😂

Bagnall Bling

Now back from his sojourn down south Himself is getting on with preparing Gelert for it's roll-out at the Greenock show.

We've decided to finish it in its current lined out livery, because frankly it just looked too dull in all-over dark blue.

For this he's using Kemco / Modelmaster BR mixed traffic lining sheets.

These are also what we used on our spoof BR liveried Lyd.

Its arguable that the grey is a little too - well - grey for the lining on the real loco which looks more brilliant white, but these transfers are very crisp which more than makes up for it in my mind.

If you look very closely you might be able to make out that he has deployed his thick black transfer line trick to get perfect definition on the change between the blue of the tank and the black of the running plate.

I think it'll make a very attractive little engine and look terrific taking turns with Russell and the Baldwin hauling our new WHHR set on Bron Hebog.