Yellow paint and near disaster

I thought I'd better do a proper job on this locomotive. Rather than use Humbrol yellow on the ends, I treated myself to some Precision Paints yellow. This appears to be slightly greener than the "wrong" version to my eye. I'm going to assume it's correct though or hundred of finescale nerds are going to have the vapours...

Anyway, the yellow was reasonably thick but still had the usual useless covering properties of the colour. I know this and yet still forgot to put on a white undercoat (on the loco, if you are looking for fashion advice, go somewhere else). Still, after around half a bottle I'd done the buffer beams and nose doors. I know this is a big loco but that still seems a lot to me. I reckon Halfords for paint next time !

Anyway, the model was carefully propped up securely (I thought) on boxes on the bench to dry properly. In the morning I checked on it and was more than  a little surprised to see an empty bench. Worse, the model itself was lying on the floor.

Panicking a little I picked it up and examined the damage:

• A squashed buffer housing
• Two handrail supports no longer attached to the handrail
• Some scuffs on the nose
• A lifting ring missing (later found on the bench)

I desperately tried to work out of the model had twisted. All the other damage was easy to fix but a bent loco would be bad news. You can't easily restore this sort of thing as the metal stretches.

Fortunately, the square seemed to show that all was acceptably OK. The model had bounced off the bench and on to some carpet on the floor that I have to keep my delicate tootsies warm. Had it hit the concrete floor things would have been a lot worse.