Reweathered fertilser wagon

Last week I spent snorkelling with my son in Dorset and having a great time doing lots of sea swimming and camping with friends. Consequently, little modelling was achieved, although I did manage to finish the reweathering of a fertiliser wagon when we got home - itself a product of one of my first attempts at weathering rolling stock.

Before...an early attempt

I thought that I would give some modelmates dyes a try out too at the same time. It was all a bit of an experiment to enhance an existing wagon, which I believed I could do a better job on now. As the second photograph shows, the weathering on the wagon is now pretty heavy, itself partly a product of the mud colour dye used, and also a bit of a learning process, probably being a bit too heavy on application.

....and after

In summary, of uses for the modelmates dyes I think they will work really well on buildings and more general scenic uses. However, I am not entirely convinced on their use for weathering rolling stock - personally I think that I will stick with using acrylic paints and enamels for rolling stock. Overall, the finish is ok, but I am not bowled over by it. A good experiment, but not one I will repeat..

Bachmann class 45 with DCC sound

In between bouts of working and socialising this week I managed to put the finishing touches to my class 45 project. This project has been ongoing for about 6 months (maybe longer), but I think finally it is ready for service on my forthcoming layout. In my last post I mentioned that fitting the DCC sound chip was simple - well that was until I tried to reassemble the body with the speaker in and realised it would not fit.

The completed locomotive

The finished locomotive running past the signal box at Georgeham

The chassis block had to be slightly filed to accept the speaker - note the cut away indent by the speaker

The roof fan mounts had to be cut way to make space for the speaker, so the roof fan was remounted on a plasticard strip

The DCC sound unit is the Howes one, with the round speaker as supplied. To get this to fit in I had to file a little bit away from the metal chassis block with my dremmel. I also had to cut the roof fan fixing off the inside of the body and reattach the fan via a thin piece of plasticard. With a notch taken out of the chassis side, the roof fan modification, and the various component wires taped down, the locomotive went back together with little bother.

Class 45 at Georgeham Halt

The weathering was done over about 10-15 coats of various railmatch enamel shades. It was a slow job, done over several months. Other simple modifications were picking out the desk controls in black and adding the buffer beam detail. Simple tasks but they make a big difference. Overall, the end result I am delighted with - it is another step in the right direction for me, and is definitely my best attempt at weathering so far.

The view from the now abandoned Georgeham signal box

Taking the locomotive onto the DCC test track it was a joy to start it up and run it around with the sound chip working. All the photographs were taken with the sound running - although I think I am right in saying that I can no longer upload videos onto this blog - a real shame as I think it sounds great and I took a few videos at the same time. Anyhow, quite a few photographs but as you might be able to tell I am pretty chuffed with how this one turned out!!

And then so on to the next project, and sometimes you need somehting to plant a little seed of inspiration. And a secondhand class 25 locomotive, which is a perfect runner complete with decoder was purchased for £30 from my local model shop. This has already entered the bath of superstrip....hopefully some updates of this project soon!!

Not another class 25, but I could not resist this bargain!!

Bachmann class 45/0 and a shock wagon

This weekend was the first in a while, with some 'freetime'. Chores such as cleaning out the car, repainting the bathroom ceiling, etc were put to one side and I settled down for several stints of modelling. Two projects I focused on were the weathering of a class 45/0 and also a shock wagon.

The shock wagon had a very simple coupling conversion and then was weathered with a mix of weathered black, frame dirt, track dirt and sleeper grime. I am pretty pleased with how it turned out. Incidentally, it was photographed on a little diorama that my sun is building. More on this as it develops...

Weathered shock wagon

The class 45 is a project that had stalled recently, due to being away a lot. The locomotive is also being fitted with a DCC sound unit, so it was one of those projects that had stalled due to it being a bit more complex. The weathering was started a couple of months ago, before being finished this weekend. I would guess that in total it took about 10 coats of paint, but I feel it is my best effort so far. Hopefully I will get the locomotive reassembled this week and will take some proper photographs of it.

Class 45 body shell

I also installed the Howes sound chip over the weekend. One of those things that was ridiculously easy once you started, but seemed more complex before getting stuck in. I tested the chassis on the Georegham test track and it sounds brilliant. Really looking forward to seeing this working freight duties on Pottington Quay. Some 45's worked the ballast out of Meldon Quarry during the 1980's and they looked pretty grubby - I presume because they were no longer front line passenger locomotives (although I am not certain of this). The weathering job was inspired by a photograph of one of these stopping at Exeter St Davids signal box looking filthy with a train of grampus wagons c.1985.

Engineering wagon progress

Well have finally got sometime to myself at the moment - working close to home means I can do some modelling in the evenings. To this end I have picked up some of the projects that had been lying around unfinished. Recently I have built a couple of 13t open wagons (diags 1/019 and 1/47) for use on spoil trains on my layouts. Both are parkside kits and went together easily. The diag 1/047 when painted had a slight gap at the body edges - a product of bad assembly by me!! This necessiatated filling half way through the painting process and then sanding off with wet and dry paper before rewashing. The photograph shows the wagon after sanding and washing and prior to repainting. The building of the second 13t wagon (diag 1/019) was finished tonight and this is now ready for a wash and painting.

13t wagon now being incorporated into the engineering fleet.

Second 13t wagon waiting for the paintshop

The ends of the body are being repainted after a small gap was noticed...

The dogfish wagon is a Heljan model, taken apart, super-stripped and repainted in weathered black with rust. I have just about finished spraying the hopper but the underframe requires a lot more work. Hopefully I will get the transfers on this wagon over the weekend. I think that with just a few little tweaks these wagons can look pretty good - they just need some attention/weathering to bring out the best in the detail.

Heljan dogfish in the process of being repainted

On other wagon projects the whale and tunny wagons have both just sat in my painting box waiting for Modelmaster to announce that the transfer packs are ready for these wagons......both wagons are ready for the varnish coat before transfers. Let's hope that this month Modelmaster finally manage to get the transfers produced and I can finally finish off these two wagons!!! I think both have been waiting for about a year now - doesn't time go quickly??...

Tunny still waiting on transfers

And a whale ready for transfers

Lastly, one of my first attempts at weathering with an airbrush is coming back into the paintshop for some serious reworking. Whilst at the time I was delighted with the finish, I now think I can do a bit better. Following on from a Model Rail article I ordered some Modelmates weathering dyes and have started re-weathering the wagon with these. Hopefully, a finished update will appear soon on this wagon....

Fertiliser wagon before reweathering- an early attempt

On a different note, my son and I travelled to Taw Valley Models in Chulmleigh on Saturday, one of our local model shops. When we arrived we found the shop had closed down - presumably a consequence of the recession. All I can say is what a pity, it was a great shop with a friendly atmosphere and will be missed by us and I am sure many others.