Most of us from time-to-time have one of those "why on earth did I start that?" moments, and this is my latest - a batch of a dozen or so Cambrian PO wagons that I've recently unearthed and dusted off. It's not that I've anything against Cambrian kits in general, just that what was supposed to be a quick, impulse-driven project has turned out to be anything but.
These models are more challenging, shall we say, than many competitors, but a reasonable model can result if you're willing to put the hours in. The bodyside dimensions don't match the floor, which always annoys me, the internal planking is represented by raised lines and the underframe is a bin-and-replace job. However, these special-run kits (marketed by R.D. Whyborn) were very nicely printed with local (Midlands) liveries, so I quite fancied putting them together for a boiler-bunny shunting plank project I've got on the go at the moment. Making a decent wagon out of these rudimentary parts is something I've done many times before, but unfortunately I'd since forgotten how labour intensive some of these 4mm kits actually are when compared to their 7mm cousins - not quite what I intended to get into at this point in time. On top of this I'm out of all the relevant buffers, W-irons, springs and axleboxes as I largely model D&E era stuff these days - not only isn't this the quick glue and touch-up job I thought I'd started, but I need to spend some money as well. B*gg*r!
Of course, I could just put them away in a box somewhere and start something else instead. But I'm always doing that, which is why I thought I'd start a nice, little, self-contained project like this in the first place...