Engineering PMV and CCT wagons

The CCT (furthest away) and PMV (closest) left at Amberleigh Halt, on what appears to be fine summers evening sunset (or just bad lighting!!!)

This week has seen much progress on the wagon front, not least the finishing of two models, the southern CCT and southern PMV, modelled in 1970/1980s departmental liveries. Although enjoyable projects, both of these wagons had flaws from my limited modelling - I have always maintained this a blog about my experiences of modelling - and these two wagons fit that bill perfectly!


The finished PMV, I am still not happy with the glazing though

On each of the wagons I had niggles with the finishes. On the CCT QPV staff Tool wagon I was less that impressed with my finish on the transfers. With the PMV I really messed up the glazing! So on both wagons I was 90% happy but that 10% really niggled me.


An attempt to rescue to the original glazing effort, using glue and glaze. A good lesson that if you rush things, it will show up

With the PMV I put a layer of glue and glaze over the windows and let this set before weathering the wagon. This did a lot to disguise the poor first attempt at glazing. This wagon was always destined for a heavily weathered finish, so these two factors I was hoping would make for an acceptable finish. The photographs show whether this has succeeded; the glazing is certainly better, but not perfect. I am now 95% happy, although there are still niggles with the PMV, such as a wonky hand rail, etc! I think that it is one of those projects I will live with, until I get around to replacing it - which will probably be in a decade or so!!


The heavier weather finish on the PMV

With the CCT I really only wanted to disguise the poor finish on the transfers using some subtle weathering. This I hope has been achieved. The CCT (now a QPV tool wagon) I was always happier with. I think that the weathering job has succeeded in blending in these transfer elements, so this one can stay!!


The CCT with the lighter weathered finish

Recently I took down my DCC test track (Amberleigh) and put this into storage. I realised that this is a bad idea - as I now have nowhere set up to photograph finished/developing models. So I balanced Amberleigh up on some trestles to take these photographs last night and held a lamp in one hand and the camera in the other. Needless to say it was all a bit make shift and as the result the photographs are pretty rubbish! Hopefully, Pottington Quay will have some scenic elements added before too much longer and this will then be used to take better photographs.


Departmental QQV tool wagon

On other modelling projects some progress has been made on my Class 121 DMU, with buffers added and underframe detailing started. I also finished my first tunny wagon, another wagon for my growing engineering fleet. However, I am now away with work for about three weeks or so, so updates will be sporadic at best.