I've always taken the view that modelling needs to be fun, and you need to look forward to doing it. Sometimes I find myself feeling either mentally stuck with a project or just very easily distracted, and in those moments I can end up doing something completely different instead - worst of all trawling the internet for things to buy, which usually ends up being unproductive.
So, I've taken a new stance that 'any modelling' is worthwhile modelling, and whilst that might mean I have four or five projects in limbo, if I can do something which adds to the grand scheme - just crack on with it. This week has been about Trucks, and taking advantage of the good weather.
Firstly I decided to gather together 90% of the IM Truck kits included in the various IM Box Cars/Reefers/Hoppers that I have, and no matter what state of the kit, just get the trucks assembled and painted in primer. Fourteen pairs of Trucks later, the first batch were strung on a piece of Code 75 rail and taken outside for priming:
Weather was warm enough that 50min later a top coat could be applied:

Apologies for out of focus photos....
The next day the majority of these then has wheels added:
Yes there is an odd number there, one of the Athearn Andrews Trucks suffered from a brittle bolster and snapped whilst inserting the wheels, but i have spares for that to be repaired in due course. The Andrews trucks look rather sparse with no brake rigging, so I'll look to see if I can get the ridding produced by Sarah G on Train Kitchen downloaded and 3D printed.
Today, I had another session and managed to get the majority of the remaining trucks primed:
Doing the 'production line' of assembling the trucks certainly allowed me to get lost in my thoughts and was a pretty relaxing process. This will also allow a whole load of sprues and the packaging for the wheel sets to be binned, which frees up some space.
I'm not going to be so quick to paint the second batch of trucks black, seeing as a number of pairs will require painting to match the body colour of the car they will be slung beneath.
I also decided to get the underframe of one of the March-O-Meet bargain box cars built - this also requires painting black to make prototypical. It's another ATSF Box Car, so pretty similar to the other cars in my collection, but this time with the 'Grand Canyon' script on the side.
So usual score of masking up the sides (a lot easier when ladders etc have not been added), and then primed and top coat in black:
This one really should be put back in the box (with painted trucks) and one of the other freight cars finished....we'll see how that goes. However like a growing number of the box cars, this will also require a scratch built roof walkway to replace the basic one supplied with the kit.
Cheers,
Stephen