Where do I go now?

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Let's make a phone call

Returning from the Brissy Model Rail show I realised like everything in life this was not going to be simple. One of the new words I come across at the show was "Cottage Industry" at the time I did not understand what this meant but this became clear later in my journey. 

A couple weeks after the show, I picked up the phone and called PGC Scale Models and spoke to nice gentleman who asked me heaps of questions and I provided my backstory. He advised his models were available, but I would need to wait a couple months due to other various commitments and explained to me the QR scene was a small cottage industry compared to the other markets, but things are possible and encouraged me to keep at my goal. He politely asked me to send him an email, and he would be in touch with details of his available models and some other information to possibly help me.

Back to the drawing board

Still a little confused and unsure where to start, I was determined to get my hobby underway and armed with some new information I decided to investigate what scratch building was. First step was to find some railway plans and this essentially led back to QLD State Archives where I would have to travel down to them to obtain archive files, so I parked this idea. 

Not having a single clue what scratch building was as I was an outdoor sports kid, I started to google and stumbled upon this video Adam Savage's One Day Builds: Kit-Bashing and Scratch-Building! as you guessed, down the rabbit hole I went. Another google search and I was amazed by the talents demonstrated in this video Top Tips for Scratch Building with Styrene: The Barge, Ep 1 

After several more googling attempts, I stumbled across a fellow Aussie Scratch Building with Styrene - Tools & Techniques truly this is a really great set of skills from planning to production. Inspired by this video, I thought to myself, does anyone build QR models with this Styrene stuff.  

When I googled "8 Wheel Wagon QR" I come across this video Arthur Hayes MMR - Building an 8-wheel wagon (freight car) I watched this video several times because all the googling I had done, I had not found anything specific to the subject matter and so informative. The gentlemen in the video demonstrated a wealth of knowledge and practical lessons learnt.

Curious to understand who this gentleman was I did a few more google searches then stumbled upon his blog Westgate - South Western Rail Honestly I was blown away by what I had found, I tried a few various google searches and found this blog Westgate - South Western Rail: 3 Dome Tank Wagons/Cars It is this point in my journey that provided the ignition and further inspiration to keep moving forward with my ideas. Looking back, I should have started from the oldest post and moved forward instead of spending hours jumping all around the various blogs out of order.

In my next posts I will try and keep explaining the process I went on which hopefully demonstrates never give up and keep trying.

Until next time.

Little Shunter




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