My latest purchases

Today I want to introduce some nifty purchases I have just made starting with

1. SMS paints used on my BR86

I must admit this was my first time using these paints and they spray beautifully straight from the bottle, no thinning.

2. A second purchase was the Trumpeter engraver

We needed to scribe the plastic floor of the cab of the BR86 locomotive then paint it stained wood. I remember reading that scribing plastic with a blade etc left ridges either side of the scribed line but an engraver caused the cut to be clean with no ridging, so the Trumpeter engraver was bought.

3. Third was a saw set

I needed to cut off a small plastic item but the only saw I had was a U-Star handy craft saw however the blades are really thick and do not go into tight spaces so a search on the BNA website showed up the ManWah fine saw set where the blades are only 0.10mm thick, just the thing

4. A good pair of nippers

A fellow ACT modeller recommended these nippers as the blades are very different from normal nippers in that one blade is flat and the other is sharp such that a cut is made by the sharp blade cutting against the flat blade. Now this may seem a load of rubbish however the proof of the pudding is in the eating and they are superb, highly recommended

5. Now back to painting the cab floor of my BR86. Normally my wood effect is achieved by first painting the part with a sand colour e.g. AK Desert Sand or my favourite Panzer Aces 310 Old Wood, followed by a coating of Citadel Devlan Mud. However my Devlan Mud is nearly empty and apparently it is no longer made. So asking Google it told me a good alternative was "The Army Painter Quickshade Strong Tone"

A search on the web showed Mighty Ape had not only the strong tone but a full set of 11 washes , how cool as I get all these washes to experiment with .

6. A new magazine to me was a book from Mig Jimenez