Parcels service: 12t parcel van finished (finally)

A merry xmas to everyone and best wishes for the new year!  Following on from my post several months ago about painting a series of vans for parcels traffic on Pottington Quay, I have finally managed to finish the first one.  It is a 12t fish van that has been converted to an SPV van for parcels traffic.  This wagon was built about a year ago, so it is brilliant to finally see it finished.

Overall I am reasonably happy with this one, but again the transfer application was not perfect - despite being applied to a super gloss surface, however, at normal viewing distance I don't think it will be noticeable.  I made a real effort with the livery application on this wagon, with something in the region of 20 different coats applied via air brush and also using paintbrush washes.

On top of a black pre-shading a faded livery was applied before weathering.  It is difficult to now see the tonal variation in the original livery application, although the light where this was photographed was not brilliant.  After this various coats of (all railmatch paints) sleeper grime, frame dirt and weathered black were applied, before a final satin varnish finish.  

As well as this wagon I have been working on two CCTs, both in BR blue.  The first of these is is already finished with the final varnish currently drying.  The second CCT has had the decals applied and is waiting for the roof and windows to be added before further weathering.

I have got another 2 of these 12t parcels wagons already built waiting for the paintshop in 00 gauge, as well as 1 in 0 gauge.  Using the lessons learnt from this wagon, I intend to upscale and finish the 0 gauge wagon using pretty much the same techniques, and when I have finished the current batch of wagons this will be the next project.

Another project which has been going on for way too long is the sturgeon wagon in 00 gauge.  This is now 95% finished, except I cannot find any 10.5mm disc wheels anywhere, and I only had two spare buffer heads to hand, so I need to order some more.  Both of these items (the buffers and the wheels) are made by Romford and both seem difficult to come by at the moment.  Anyhow, as soon as I track some down, I can get some primer on this one too.  Although it took ages to finish this wagon, it is a pretty simple construction and builds into a really good wagon.

The christmas break has afford some modelling time and there are also two 0 gauge wagons and an 00 gauge starfish wagon in the paintshop, as well as 00 gauge and 0 gauge brake vans under construction.   All in all it has been a productive few weeks and I hope to finish off at least two more wagons (and perhaps the Western) before returning to work.

16t Mineral wagon and a dogfish

I returned from my work trip to Africa earlier in December, and a months break from modelling really arrested any momentum I had with projects.  Since returning though I have slowly started to get back into the swing of modelling and the paintshop over the last week has been pretty busy.  I have 2 CCTs and 12t fish wagon all nearing completion, although the 12t fish wagon has had some horrible silvering on the transfers....I am not quite sure why this has happened as they were applied to a gloss surface, using micro set/sol.  One of today's tasks is to attempt to fix this issue.

16t mineral wagon

Anyhow, earlier in the week I got out my 16t mineral wagon and took a couple of better snaps of it.  This one is another wagon for Pottington Quay when it comes out of storage (which is only a few months away!!).  It was also my birthday in November and a late birthday present arrived - which was an 0 gauge Heljan dogfish.  This is a pretty good wagon - although the font on the data panel looks wrong to me (others have commented in this too), so I might replace this with some Railtec transfers.

0 gauge Heljan dogfish

This model will go with the 0 gauge grampus, which has now reached the transfers stage, and the 13t sand wagon is now in the paintshop.  These wagons will form the basis of a new 0 gauge micro layout and I aim to keep building new wagons throughout next year, and finishing some old ones - not least the 25t Pillbox brake van, started this time last year.  Whilst I still really enjoy 00 modelling I am finding myself more and more interested in 0 gauge modelling - and am looking forward to the Dapol 08 so I can have something to shunt these wagons around with.

16t Mineral wagon ready for the permanent way and a little grampus progress in 0 gauge

Well this week in between bouts of manic work I have managed to finish a 16t mineral wagon for the engineers yard at Potting Quay. To be honest this wagon required relatively little to finish it off, some bouts of painting and a few transfers before sealing with a satin varnish.  The wagon was built and half painted in 2013 - only taking 2 years to finish it off.  So apologies for the poor photographic skills - but finally something finished and out of the paint workshops ready for layout.

Finished 16t mineral wagon that has been seconded to the engineers yard at Pottington.

More progress has been made on the 0 gauge grampus wagon.  The size of the wagon does mean it seems to take longer to paint - although I suspect that the detail of the wagon is just more apparent allowing a greater degree of subtly in the final finish. The wagon is nowhere near finished - but some of the elements of the livery are starting to come together.  It is great fun to work on a wagon of this size -and hope to get this one finished and another 0 gauge build into the paintshop before xmas. I have even purchased a couple of lengths of 0 gauge track and have been contemplating track plans.  However all this must stop for a month now, as I am off on some work travels - heading to the Med than Africa - so back in a month!

The 0 gauge grampus continues to make progress - adding in elements of the rust and weathering.

CCTs and parcels trains progress

Well just as the Bachmann CCT's hit the shelves, I have almost finished a couple of the Parkside kits for my parcels trains.  The first one was started by son before he lost interest in trains.  It is not a perfect build - but I quite like that, as it was a model we built together.  The second is the CCT with the plywood sides and I have also been working on the first of the 12t fish vans.

CCT with plywood sides showing the faded finish

I described in an earlier post how I had pre-shaded the wagons before painting.  Over this I have applied various coats of BR faded blue, and BR blue.  The two CCTs are ready, but the 12T wagons has had a further coat of faded blue on top.  I have put a couple of coats of varnish on these already so hopefully application of the transfers is not too far away, although I do have to pick out some of the details like handrails in white and also properly paint the underframes.  I also need to find somewhere with decent lighting to take the photos - sorry these are a bit dark.  I think that i will have to buy a Bachmann blue CCT just to see how it compares...

CCT ready for some transfers

Express parcels 12T van, showing the preshading under the coats of BR blue

A bit of 0 gauge progress

My paint workshop is currently pretty busy, with a lot of wagons ready to be painted and weathered. Ticking over in the back ground has been the build of a 12t fish van, which is to enter service in a faded BR blue livery.  This wagon is the 0 gauge Parkside Kit.  As I was modelling an 00 gauge parcels train I thought I would turn my hand to building a couple of these wagons is 0 gauge.  The kit went together seamlessly and is now ready for a wash and lick of paint.

12t van ready for a coat of faded BR blue

My 0 gauge grampus is also progressing and has been the subject of a couple of coats of paint from the air brush.  I have made a start on the bodywork, mixing in some coats of weathered black, light rust and dark rust.  The body work is almost there now and a start has been made on the underframe.  Hopefully this wagon will be finished in a couple of weeks, all dependent on how much free time I am allowed over the weekends.  I am thoroughly enjoying this little venture into 0 gauge and just having one or two items of rolling stock to work in the background will quickly allow enough wagons for a small shunting micro layout to be built.....now how long until that Dapol 08 hits the shelves??...

Grampus wagon part way through painting

Heljan western - taking a deep breath!

Sometime ago I put up a post of a second Heljan Western I purchased on ebay.   This model recently came out of the box.  As work was progressing well on painting the parcels wagons and the sturgeon wagon is complete save for the handrails, I though I needed a new challenge.

As the model is secondhand I am just having a go trying out some techniques for weathering/painting on it.  If it all goes wrong, I can just strip it down and repaint it.  So I un-clipped the body.  The detailing on the chassis has yet to be undertaken, and I put this to one side.

With the body un-clipped I splatted some white paint all over the paint job with a brush and then tried to take some of it back off with a cotton wool bud.  Once reasonably happy with this, I sprayed some faded blue in stripes over this.

Lastly, I made a mix of weathered black and frame dirt and applied this over the body, before wiping most of it away with cotton wool buds.  This is the first of several paint layers which will attempt to make a suitably distressed western down in Devon in the mid/late 1970s.  It did take a bit of deep breath to start this one - but now it is started I am keen just to try whatever I fancy.  Hopefully more progress on this one soon.....

SPV, CCT and a mineral wagon

Well I have done a little more painting with the airbrush.  I am just getting the hang of mixing the paints again, but all is progressing well.  I have done a little pre-shading on the SPV and CCT, after a quick coat of primer.  Both of these will feature a weathered, faded BR blue, which will be applied lightly over the top of the white primer and black pre-shading.  The first coat of faded blue will go on this evening, followed by a couple more coats tomorrow.

The other wagon on the go is a 16t mineral wagon.  This was started in 2013 and half painted then.  I am just trying to blend in the rust finish on this a little, but I am tempted to go for some of the new noch iron rusty finish.  I know others can manage it, but my painting of rust never looked that convincing!  Anyhow I will persevere with this one and see what I can come up with.

And one more thing - the relevant planning authorities have given permission for a new micro-shunting layout.  With Pottington Quay firmly in storage until next year, building a small layout for the winter is in order.....