The class 08 project has been a bit of an epic. I reckon I started it about two years ago and it was one of those projects that just lost momentum and stalled for several years. The model came with an 8 pin socket. However, as I wanted to fit the Express Models lighting kit I decided to cut this socket out and hard wire the decoder, making more room for the lighting kit.
The fitting of the lighting kit is hard-work, not least due to the tiny amount of room available within the locomotive. In the end I decided to go with only working lights at the front of the locomotive, due to the complexity of getting the lights into the cab/rear of the locomotive. It sounds like a bit of a cop out, but I could not get the body to reassemble properly with the full kit inside.
With the front lights working I reassembled the locomotive and added buffer beam details and a few gubbins underneath the chassis. It must be said that even with only half the lighting kit in the loco, and a large amount of the chassis metal block cut away, it still is a really tight squeeze.
The weathering was done over the top of the Bachmann factory finished weathering. It was undertaken over the space of probably 2 - 3 weeks, in a non-intense way. The rear windscreens had wiper masks from PH Designs, and a few spays of weathered black frame-dirt and light rust were applied to help all the components blend in together and accentuate/improve the factory finished weathering. I weathered the locomotive fully assembled, so I took care to mask the wheels etc, before I started. After sealing the weathered finish with Acclad varnish I gave it a test run and it works perfectly.
Overall I am pretty happy with this effort. Like everything in life it is no perfect, but it is getting closer and I think (hope) my modelling is getting better. The body is still a tight squeeze on the chassis and this is my only concern with the model. But this is the first bit of stock ready to go on Potting Quay - specifically a shunting micro layout. I should also add that the model with a TCS decoder in performs faultlessly. It traverses points with ease and was a joy to run around on my micro test layout earlier.
The other project I finished today was the weathering of a 12t goods van. This is one of the standard Bachmann wagons which has had 3 link couplings added. With this wagon I applied a weathering wash to the whole wagon, a mixture of thinned weathered black and frame dirt. Once this had settled in all the nooks and crannies I accentuated this weathering by spraying weathered black over the raised detail/roof and frame dirt over the body sides. I don't think the photos do it justice (I am rubbish at photography!!), but I am delighted with the finish on this one. It will be the standard way I weather a number of these good vans for Pottington Quay.
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