Hi folks, here are a few little projects and new purchases that have kept me busy -

A 1:87 Shinsei Hitachi EX8000, which I've tarted up a bit. It was broken and missing tracks and some railings. I took the opportunity to add boom railings. The only tracks I thought matched ok were a set of Conrad's linked plastic tracks. I also touched up the shiny rivet heads and added cab louvres and an air con unit, plus a few hydraulic lines.

1:87 Shinsei Hitachi EX8000 mining shovel excavator by ****llection, on Flickr"/>

1:87 Shinsei Hitachi EX8000 mining shovel excavator by ****llection, on Flickr"/>

The next model is a 1:32 Joal Komatsu PC400. I added a 3D printed shear (bought from 3D Printing Corner on Ebay for a perfectly reasonable £14.

1:32 Joal Komatsu PC400 with demolition shear by ****llection, on Flickr"/>

Here is a low loader with a big metal Demag H485 bucket made by KPS Models.

1:50 KPS Models Demag H485 bucket by ****llection, on Flickr"/>

I'm also a bit of a collector of 1:32 / 1:35 backhoe loaders, and bought this on Ebay recently. I've not seen a gold one before. It looks like a genuine factory painted version. Anyone else seen one?

1:35 Conrad Massey Ferguson 50HX backhoe loader GOLD version by ****llection, on Flickr"/>

It's number: ART 2952 I don't have another 50HX to hand (buried somewhere in the model room!) so if anyone else has one to check, that would be useful. I'm guessing they wouldn't have separate numbers back then for the different versions though. I might email Conrad. Beate Munker has always been very helpful in the past and he may well have some information.