Hot and Bothered....

Enjoying the hot weather are we?

I tend to get a bit tired and listless when the weather's hot, so my modelling productivity drops accordingly.

I have been reading the three part article in AMRM concerning Victorian wooden bridges (trestles). The most recent article is in the current (February) issue.It's just what I needed to get me off my rear end and build my bridge. Now I know it's about Victorian bridges and I model NSW but it seems to me that in N scale the differences are quite minor. So by next week the bridge should be finished and I'll be able to post some photos.

I also had a bit of a read of the editorial in AMRM. Bob Gallagher sems to have finally woken up to the fact that the hobby is becoming (is?) too expensive for many people and that as a community the hobby is rapidly aging with few 'young' people joining us. The amount of 'grey' hair in evidence at Liverpool last year was startlingly obvious. I and a lot of other people have been saying this for some time with a number of editorials and letters in the British press. In the US the hobby is a bit more reasonably priced and there are more modellers with a lot of money. Look at the many basement size layouts displayed in their  model press.

Unfortunately the importers here still haven't woken up. I hate to sound like the grumpy old man I am but it's a recipe for the demise of the hobby.

Personally I'm glad I model N scale, the prices for Chinese Australian outline HO are now way too expensive for me. With N scale I can build kits and buy the occasional locomotive and ready to run wagon (saving my pennies for the Gopher 44 whenever that's released). As a retiree my funds are limited so kit building is the way to go. Once the kit, paint etc is added together it probably isn't as cheap as I imagine, but I can spread the cost over the time it takes to build rather than forking out hundreds of dollars in one go.

I'm currently working on a peter Boorman KHG, and looking at starting on his 45 class kit as well as the bridge mentioned above.

I've just fitted the badger 2AT bogies I recieved in the post the othe day and now I'm ready to paint (don't worry I'll remove the bogies before I paint).

Talking about painting. An interesting discussion on the NSW facebook group about the best paint for NSW "indian red". My understanding is that there were two red/brown shades used by NSWR, tuscan red and indian red and I also understood that tuscan was the darker and browner and indian the lighter and more red. One member of the group suggested Export spray cans of Indian red, others the Railey brand, another box car red.

The 'Export' sounded good so I got hold of a can this morning and tested it on a metal CPH body I,ve had sitting around for years.

It's a bit weird. When I look at the result using my own eyes it looks quite dark and brown, not a lot of red there at all, but when I take a photo (see above) it's lighter and I think I can see a touch of red. The actual coverage is good but I'm still not convinced it's the correct shade.

Just a quick shot of some work I've been doing on my Vietnamese layout.

It's mainly the road side posts. The white posts with the red tops. Most main roads seem to have them. Every kilometre or so one has the distance to the next town/city on it.

Oh well, I'm off to the Vietnamese TET (new year) celebrations at Fairfield Showground tonight so that should be fun.

Untl next time...