Talk with a friend about Brumm horse drawn carriages prompted me to dig out my example which is destined as a load on one of my scratch built Open Carriage trucks (what else you might wonder). How I come to have this is a bit of a tale of how nice people can be. I was doing my Silhouette demo at a show and was talking to a gent about the OCT's and he mentioned that he had some 1:43rd scale horse drawn vehicles. I confess that other than liking the idea that I may be able to get a vehicle to travel on the OCT's I didn't think any more about it because I hadn't (and still haven't) finished them. However at the next show I demoed at the gent that I had been chatting to came along and brought one of the vehicle for me. I paid a token sum and we both went away happy. This is the vehicle in question and aside from being a bit bright the only other issue is that one of the carriage lamps is missing. Now I am not complaining about this because they are a poor representation on what is other wise a reasonable model. Having talked about it and dug it out, I decided to do something about the carriage lamps. As is usual I machined up a prototype which I was happy with overall design wise but it was too big. This morning I had another go. I added a bit of paint to make them easier to photograph - my camera struggled to focus they are that small. They just need a spigot adding to allow them to be attached to the coach.
I have to come clean and say that I do have readers on and a pair of magnifying specs over those, for the tiny stuff. - what I look like I shudder to think, but I don't really care.
I was short sighted from pretty much the age on 10, so wore specs permanently and just whipped them off for close up work. A few years ago I was diagnosed with early onset cataracts and was advised to get them done so I did. It was the worst decision of my life - from wearing spec and taking them off to read etc, I had to adapt to carrying +2.5 readers and ended up with multiple pairs, at home, at my daughters, at work and spares in the car. When I am modelling I normally use +3.5's and have a headset with light and +5 lenses for detailed work. The problem is when I look away to find a different tool I cant see them unless I take my specs off. Its the same with DIY etc a complete pain in the $%£". My advice to anyone in the same position would be to think long and hard before getting them done, stick with you own lens until you absolutely have to get them done.
Thankfully mine is just natural deterioration accelerated somewhat by looking at PC screens for 20 years. My son is short sighted and from being about 2 when he was diagnosed we gave him glasses and he never took them off so obviously needed them. He wears contacts these days.
Following on from my making of the replacement carriage lamps I decided that I really couldn't live with that bright yellow livery. So, in between other jobs, I carefully took it to bits and resprayed all the bits to take off the 'plasticy'/toy like look. This journey was helped by my sorting out the issues with two of my airbrushes and completely killing the third when the spray nozzle broke off as I was reassembling it after a thorough clean. I have kept the remaining parts as I am pretty sure that the needle and other bits will fit one of the others. I originally wanted to finish it in a crimson lake colour but I didn't have any paint to hand so I enlisted Chris's assistance to mix some. Part way through that process she arrived at a lovely plum colour which I rather liked so we stuck with that. I do need to ft the carriage lamps of course.
I managed to drill the brass lamps for a fixing pin yesterday and got them fitted so I can declare this one completely finished. A few more gratuitous shots because I am really pleased with how this has turned out. I really do need to get the OCT's finished now.
Superb Rob ... I can hear the clatter of hooves (er before anyone jumps to conclusions ... no it's not the other 5/8ths coming to see what I'm doing) Ian vt
