Review Of The Year - Part 1

For the last few posts of the year I always like to take a look back at all that we've achieved together in the last 12 months.

Sometimes when you're only spending a few minutes at the workbench at a time it can seem like you're not making much progress, but when I review the year like this it brings home how much has been done.

January

I began the year by attempting to have something of a spring clean of the shelf above my modelling desk which is where I dump the castings which don't turn out perfectly when I am producing a batch of wagon kits.

Fortunately, one of my customers is happy to take them off my hands as 'scrappers' to decorate his South African NG layout .

So I thought I could make a quick few quid by assembling them into some very tired looking wagons for him.

The only flaw in the plan is that I never did get paid for them....

I also began the year making a big effort to build some of the remaining houses we need to complete the Oberon Wood scene.

February

The big news in the second month of the year was that the layouts completed their migration to Scotland with Himself after just over a month in storage.

They survived with only the most minimal damage - a couple of fence posts knocked over on the edges of some of the boards - and we soon had Dduallt assembled for a test run in its new home.

I continued building houses and by the end of the month we had three of them ready.

March

By this time I reckoned I needed a break from house building and I decided to make a start on a carriage commission that I'd promised to build for a friend more than a year previously.

This customer wanted to recreate his misspent youth in miniature with a model of the (late) FR 'Tin Car' 121 converted to be used as a 'Disco Carriage' on special charters for the volunteers.

With Himself getting settled in his new home we were able to get out the board with the Oberon Wood scene on it and try out the new houses in position.

April

As a one-off favour Himself agreed to take a look at a friend's Backwoods NGG16, which he'd bought from a popular internet auction site.

The loco ran very rough and some major errors had been made during construction as water tank on the front power unit looked like it was ready to be launched from the ski ramp at the bow of an aircraft carrier!

I was also making steady progress on the 'Disco Car' with the body or less complete by the end of the month.

To be continued..