Paint Stripping and other progress on Philip's Creek

I was tempted to use the well-established media practice of misleading or exaggerated headlines as a title for this post but eventually decided against it.

I mentioned earlier that I had recently purchased an EHO guards van kit and the self-induced pressure to assemble it led to a quick adjustment of priorities. For guidance, I consulted Ray Pilgrim's short article on the kit published in AMRM a few years ago as well as some other photos and an earlier plan also in a much earlier issue of AMRM.

The kit went together without difficulty although I'm not sure that I have got the width of the running boards correct. I then proceeded to paint the model while it was in three parts; roof, body and chassis. For the body, I had purchased a jar of paint labelled as Indian Red that I understood was the correct colour for a van in the last 1960s. However, the colour that emerged was a deep purple or maroon, closer the colour of the Queenslanders’ jerseys  on TV last Wednesday night. I decided to remove the paint and start again. The hunt was on for an appropriate way to remove the paint without damaging the detail. After a search of online advice, I experimented (very gingerly I might add) with three options; methylated spirits, white spirits and nail polish remover. Of these,  the nail polish remover delivered the best outcome.

The paint stripping in progress.
The irony of this photo is that the paint colour looks
much better than it appears to the Mk 1 eyeball.



I used a small syringe to wash over a portion of the wall, waited for a few minutes and then brushed it with a stiff bristle brush. I didn't want to remove the primer that I had applied earlier, hence the grey colour that you can see in the photo.

As yet, I haven't got around to repainting. Hopefully that can happen next week. Once that has been done, I will then add some additional weight, assemble the three elements, finsih the model and then weather.

On other projects, the back drop had another test fit and continues to progress slowly. My wife reminds me that I am getting a work of art and that takes time - we'll get there eventually.

The silo continues to progress slowly although the purchase of Keiran Ryan's  etched brass component kit has added some nice detail particularly around the receiving area.

To finish this post, the following are a couple of recent photos from Philip's Creek.



3123 awaiting more shunting duties





The new Halt for the Philip's Creek mine employees.
 Still not yet complete with signage and fencing to add