Superstrip 2 - revisiting some old wagons

With Christmas looming, I finally have some time to indulge in modelling. I have been craving some dedicated modelling time and it feels great to finally be able to get stuck into some projects. The current main task is to finish building the baseboards for the continuous OO gauge loop. I have built one of the five boards I need, so later today I hope to get another 1 or 2 finished off. The aim is to be track laying and soldering by Wednesday and to be operational by Thursday - but lets see. In the meantime I have got the airbrush up and running again and have put a little bit of paint on a couple of wagons and the class 25. My other big task at the moment is to paint strip some wagons. The first of these is an O gauge Parkside SPV. I managed to make a real mess of the transfers when I did this wagon originally and tried to hide the poor transfers with some weathering. The wagon never ran that well anyhow, so it has been stripped and washed, and I will start to clean it up later today and sort out the running issues.

Original paint finish on the SPV, which I then tested out some weathering pencils on.....

Now stripped and ready for repainting.

The next two wagons are both OO gauge; a Parkside CCT and PMV, which I built and painted years ago. These were amongst the first wagons I finished when I had my first airbrush. I was delighted with them at the time, but on reflection they could be significantly improved, so after at least 12 years or so, they are in the paint stripper. 

The CCT and PMV in the paint stripper.

Lastly, I recently purchased an O gauge Dapol milk tanker. The factory finish paint job on this wagon was very thick, with a noticeable seam on the body side.  I tried to file this away and then blend it in with some weathering, but I am not happy with it. So instead I am going to go for a full repaint - this will head into the Superstrip bath this evening.

Dapol O gauge milk tanker out of the box - notice those seams!

The paint seams filed away.

First attempt at weathering - this is no ready for stripping.

Currently, I have loads of kits to build and lots of locomotives to sound chip and detail. Therefore, I am at a point with my modelling, where I am trying not to buy anything else, but finish what I already have! It is great to be able to recycle some old wagons and I am looking forward to painting these over the coming weeks. I have a modelling desk full of kits to build over xmas, so I am hopeful that I can get the OO gauge continuous run operational and get some wagon kits built/tidy up these older wagons.