About
Hi, my name is Adrian Cherry and I’m an addict.
I’m addicted to making things and fixing things, at work I describe myself as an inquisitive idiot. I like to figure out how things work and I enjoy puzzling over a problem and working out a solution.
In addition to this I enjoy explaining these solutions, both at work and outside of work, which is why I started posting a few articles about my modelling efforts and a few other miscellaneous articles. If by sharing a little bit of knowledge it encourages others to have a go at making something then I feel it will have been worth it.
My daytime job involves fiddling about with digital Flight Control Systems, so I have been a long term user of Unix systems, FORTRAN and MATLAB.
Outside of work my modelling efforts started as a kid assembling Airfix kits with varying degrees of success. Then about 14/15 yrs old I took an interest in using my Dad’s workshop. At that time he was running his own model engineering business, I.A. Model Engineering later to become Cherry Scale Models. So Saturday was spent earning pocket money making rolling bars and rivet machines and the rest of the week I could do my own thing. As he was heavily involved in the Gauge O Guild my first effort was a scratch built Deans Goods in 7mm scale. Later on I went to University and paid my way by working in the holiday periods for my Dad, either canning paint, building 7mm locos or a 1/20th. scale model of the Sydney Opera House for a now defunct theme park!
Anyway life moved on, got a new job, settled down with a multi-talented and beautiful wife. We now have two young lads at high school and two daft dogs and I still have a bit of time for a bit of modelling, although this can be very sporadic as I seem to have got involved with a few other things at the same time.
So in addition to the day job and modelling I’m also involved the local Scout group, I’m currently the Beaver Scout Leader for the group, I also volunteered to be a pixie for MERG so if you have bought a MERG kit for CANACC4 or CANACC5 then it was probably packed by myself.
And finally I have become the custodian for the Western Thunder modelling forum. It was a deeply tragic event the loss of it’s founder, Cynric Williams, but he had built a very friendly community of active modellers and I felt it would have been a great loss to the modellers involved so I offered my help from a technical/computing side. I am forever grateful that my offer of help was accepted and we have managed to keep this wonderful resource available to modellers.
24/05/2016 at 4:24 pm
Hello Adrian,
I knew your father quite well and often wondered what happened to him on the modelling circuit. The last I knew of him he was doing the “Classic train series” in gauge 1 having gone up from 0 gauge. Earlier I made a few of the handbuilt A4 parts he used to use to assemble his locos during the late 80’s early 90’s. I always used brass but Ian liked Nickel Silver so he used to send me the sheets for me to cut out and shape.
I found your site looking for some paint colours for 00 scale models, at the moment BR steam dark blue and wondered how accurate RAL 5002 is as some of the other colours 3003/4/5 do not look like the maroon/crimson I knew. I know my monitor might not show the true colour but it is not far out with photos I take.
I still have a small amount of Cherry Paints although my BR green is nearly gone. This was by far the best paint on the market for pigment/covering/brushing and I was disappointed when Precision/Phoenix took it over as the quality seemed to go down.
01/09/2017 at 10:45 pm
Hi, thanks for the feedback. My apologies for the late reply. I thought that I’d set this website up to email me when I get I get any comments – but nothing and I’ve only just found these. I’ll have to investigate.
My Dad retired a number of years ago as his eye sight has been failing so is unable to do the modelling he used to. However he has left a large legacy of scratch-built locos. He instilled the same appreciation of nickel-silver with me, to the extent that I have paid extra for a Finney7 V2 in nickel-silver rather than in brass.
As for the colours, my Dad and Bob Moore were the experts on that – the colour codes I’ve listed are just recommendations I’ve picked up from the web.