A cambrian whale wagon

I have been trying to regain some impetus on some of my stalled modelling projects recently. The biggest cause for stagnation on these projects is the lack of suitable decals from model master. However, I am led to believe that December will see an end to the supply issue of these transfers, so with this in mind, I picked up my partially completed whale wagon at the weekend.


Whale wagon nearing completion

Having time away from a project is no bad thing. A little distance will often give a little more objectivity. On picking up the whale the first thing I wanted to get rid of was the the canopies on the platforms - the original ones I had made looked pretty rubbish!! With this is mind I had purchased some A1 models mesh guards.


The canopy detail, with the metal handwheels making a substantial difference to the appearance of the wagon

Admittedly on Sunday morning I had a pretty bad hangover, but the replacing of the canopies took all day. The A1 models canopies are the wrong shape, having square struts, rather than round ones. So in the end I bent some new struts from 0.45mm wire and glued the mesh from the A1 canopies on the bent wire, after cutting off the square supports. There was quite a lot of swearing whilst doing this - a combination of a fiddly task and a bad headache!



The updated canopies are much better. After I had completed this I noticed some imperfections on the moulding of the body sides, so this was sanded off, before handwheels (Nainshire Modelling supplies), and the rest of the underframe details were added. The whale was given another good wash in the sink and is now waiting to be have its paint job finished.


The large white mark on the wagon was a moulding imperfection I have only just noticed which required sanding down.

I think I am improving on each of these large hopper wagons I build. The first walrus was not so good, the second was much better, and this is an improvement again. I have another whale and walrus in the kit box and the construction of these is imminent. Hopefully, it won't be too long until I finish one of these wagons that I am totally happy with....!