Howard Rotovator Orange

While waiting on the next set of test etches for the K12 loco I've been figuring out what paints to use to finish the model. I know that the locos were originally painted in something called "Howard Rotovator Orange" and apparently the closes match Alan Keef Ltd could find to that paint in a standard scheme is RAL 2004.

A number of ranges of model paint include an orange which is supposedly RAL 2004, and while I did contemplate airbrushing the model, it turned out I already had an aerosol can of Humbrol 18 Orange Gloss in stock which also turns out to be RAL 2004.

While I don't have the final model yet, I do have the first one I built that has the wrong bonnet side panels so I decided to practice on that.

A few minutes stood outside the back door sorted both the orange and the black for the chassis. The rest of the details, and the cab interior, were then brush painted. It's not quite as bright as the photo makes out and a little gentle weathering will help tone it down further, but I'm really quite happy with that.

Just Rust: Take 2

On reflection, and given the very helpful and constructive criticism from Paul and Iain, I've gone back and had a second go at rusting a bit of rail and girder. While the powder based approach might work well for rail dumped in a bog for a few years I admit that it wasn't so good at representing rusting surfaces which tend to discolour without such serious pitting.

On this second attempt I again started with red oxide primer and then started to add shading using the same paints as before. At this stage I wasn't entirely convinced that I was getting anywhere but the addition of some weathering powders (rust and dark earth) seems to have pulled things together nicely. Not only does the texture look more convincing but I think the colour is better as well. Hopefully you all agree?

This episode reinforces the main reason I enjoy blogging and getting comments; without Paul and Iain's feedback I may well have just continued with my first approach and the final model would have suffered as a result.

Up To Scratch?

Having finished the basic structure of my first scratchbuilt building in the previous post, I got on with doing the roof and painting it. For some reason it didn't seem worth doing separate posts for each stage so I'll just take you through the whole process in a single post. Anyway, lets start at the end with a shot of the completed building (remember the gap under the door is so I can sink the building).

Hopefully you'll all agree that this looks a lot better than it did in the previous post! So how did I turn the rather tatty looking shell of a building into something that while not perfect I'm still fairly proud of? Well it all started with a triangular needle file.

One of my main concerns, which I didn't mention at the time, was that at the corners the brick courses didn't match up very well, especially where you could see the edge of the plastikard sheet. I'd tried to fix this using a scalpel to cut the courses into place without much success. Fortunately Martin picked up on the corners in a comment and pointed me in the direction of a triangular file. Quite why I'd not thought of this myself I don't know, but just two minutes with a file and the building looked a lot better.

Once I'd sorted the corner joints the next job was the roof. I started by fixing a piece of cardboard in place to form the base of the roof before I moved onto figuring out how to add the tiles. My approach to covering the roof in slates was to follow the ideas described by David Wright in his book Making Rural Buildings for Model Railways. Unfortunately I made a couple of mistakes which would come back to bite me later. Essentially the approach involves drawing out slates in strips onto card and then cutting part way into each strip. This means you can lay an entire row of slates in one go as the join between them is hidden by the next row placed on top. I decided to use Princess Slates which are apparently 24 inches by 14 inches in size. Now I don't know how much overlap there usually is between two rows of slates but the book suggests a third. Unfortunately I misread this as a half so the rows are closer together than they should be. I also made the mistake of using normal copier paper for the slates. The problem with this became obvious as soon as I sprayed on some primer. Essentially because I'd applied the tiles as strips and the thinness of the paper the gaps between adjacent slates kind of disappeared. I carried on with painting but we will return to the slates later.

Basic painting followed a fairly simple pattern; a base colour followed by some dry brushing and a black wash. The roof used dark sea grey (Model Color #991) followed by a black wash and then dry brushing first with a little Dark Blue Grey (Model Color #904) and then black. The walls were painted first with Weathered Stone (RailMatch #2426) before a black wash and then dry brushing with khaki, brown sand, dark sand (Model Color #988, #876, and #847), and black. At this point you can see the problem with the roof tiles quite clearly, but I carried on regardless.

With the basic painting done I turned to the details, specifically the door and window frame. I was originally going to go for a dirty white for the window but Bryony suggested a worn and faded blue paint used everywhere might look better. The base coat was a 4 to 1 mixture of Flat Blue and Dark Blue Grey (Model Color #962 and #904) with then a light dry brushing of more Dark Blue Grey before a black wash to really make things look dirty. I think this has worked really well, although in retrospect the window sill maybe should have been modelled as stone rather than painted wood. Having essentially finished the building at this point I came to the conclusion that I really wasn't happy with the roof.

Unfortunately because I'd built the model as a single piece it wasn't possible to remove the existing roof, certainly not without damaging the painting I'd already done. So instead I simply laid another layer of slates over the top. This time I made them from 220gms card and ehile they are much better they still aren't perfect. Next time I might do separate slates instead of fitting a row in a single go.

The problem with the extra layer of slates was that the roof was now quite proud of the side walls. To hide this I decided to add barge boards which I cobbled together from some 0.5mm plastruct strip. I used a file to roughen the surface slightly to try and imitate wood grain although I'm not sure how successful that was. They were then painted in the same way as the door and window frame before being super-glued into place. Annoyingly after fitting them I realised they were possibly a bit short; the cowboy builders have struck again! At this point I also added a sill above the door from a short piece of right-angle plastruct which I think adds a nice little touch to the door and helps to hide the edge of the plastikard sheet.

Now usually I leave glazing windows until the very end as I want the "glass" to be nice and shiny. In this case I wanted the windows to end up looking as if they hadn't been cleaned in years, so I used Micro Kristal Klear to add the individual panes before I wafted over a light layer of matt varnish to seal everything in place. Looking at the final model I decided that the guttering was too pristine so toned this down by dry brushing a little London Grey (Model Color #836) over the metalwork and then a second coat of matt varnish made sure the windows were nice and frosted and the paint well sealed.

As I said at the start of this post the building is far from perfect but I'm really happy with how it has turned out and the amount of things I've learnt along the way. The next building is bound to be much better given my experiences here. This building was never destined for my layout so I think I'll build it a little diorama as an excuse for more scenic experimentation rather than simply throwing it away.

RNAD Crew Van: Reasonably Well Maintained

So the last stage of building the RNAD Crew Van is to paint the body. Given the rather distressed state of the loco most likely to be seen pulling it on my layout I knew I couldn't do a pristine paint job, but I also didn't want to go for a very run down look so I've attempted a kind of in between, reasonably well maintained look.

The weathering is a little more obvious in real life but essentially I've used small amounts of rust wash to help pick out the door recess, the joint with the roof, the bottoms of the window frames and along the bottom edge of the wall where it meets the underframe. I then toned down the roof with some smoke weathering powder, before using dark earth weathering powder to add some grime part way up the walls all of which was then fixed in place with a waft of satin varnish.

The final stage was to glaze the windows. This actually turned out to be much harder than I expected, as four of the windows were too large for my usual approach of using Micro Kristal Klear. Instead I had to cut some clear plastic (an off-cut from laminating something smaller than A4) to fit the window opening. I wanted the glazing to be flush to the frames rather than just placed inside the walls which meant they had to be an exact fit which took an awful lot of time, so much time that I resorted to using the Micro Kristal Klear on the smaller windows.

Other than couplings and a crew the van is finished, and yet again it was a wonderful kit to build, thanks Narrow Planet!

Quarry Hunslet: The Backstory

Not very long ago, in the bottom left-hand corner of Yorkshire, there was a factory. It wasn't a very big factory or a very important factory but it's owner was very proud of it. While you could easily walk from one side of the factory to the other its owner decided that it would be improved by the addition of a railway. Not a very long railway or a very important railway, but something that would help move things around and, if he was being honest, that he could ride at the weekends for fun.

There were quite a few companies making steam engines in the local area, but one specific company caught the factory owner's eye. The Hunslet Engine Company were making little engines for working in the Welsh slate quarries, and if they could handle that then surely they could move a few crates around his factory. The factory owners wife wasn't really sure he needed a railway at all, but she was supportive of the idea and even helped to choose the colour for the new locomotive.

So the day finally dawned when the new locomotive would arrive, and the factory owner insisted his wife join him for the delivery as he had a surprise in store. The engine arrived on the back of a wagon under a large tarpaulin to keep it clean. The factory owner climbed up on to the back of the wagon and pulled aside the tarpaulin to reveal the locomotive in all it's crimson glory. He then looked at his wife who was smiling, even though she still wasn't sure he really needed a railway, as there on the side of the locomotive was her name, and no one had ever named a steam locomotive after her before.

Firstly, my apologies to Oliver Postgate for the origins of the backstory, especially as I couldn't quite manage to maintain the same style throughout. As the final post on the building of this kit we have the fitting of the final detailing components; the name and work plates.

As I discussed in the previous post the plates were ordered from Narrow Planet and are a customized set of these plates. As well as customizing the name I also had the work plates read as "No 1. 2014" given this is the first steam loco I've built and it was completed in 2014, not that you can read the numbers at this scale. Given that I hadn't known what colour I was going to paint the plates when I ordered them they arrived as unpainted etched brass. Painting with acrylic black was easy and then I brushed on some acrylic satin varnish to protect the paint during handling, and so it would match the rest of the locomotive.

The plates were then carefully removed from the fret (the brass is very fine and so easy to distort) and with the help of some paper templates glued into place. I actually don't use glue for this, after a previous renumbering disaster, instead I brush a small amount of Humbrol enamel satin varnish on to the back of the plate (I find the enamel works better than the acrylic). This gives plenty of time to position the plate before it dries, and doesn't tend to mark the already varnished paint.

So there we have it the locomotive is now complete. At some point I'll probably glue the driver into position (a moving train without a driver looks wrong), but for now I quite like being able to look into the cab and see all the controls I spent ages painting.

Quarry Hunslet: Glazed and Confused

I've only got a short update today, but I thought it worth posting to try and lessen Iain's withdrawal symptoms (see here and here).

While the locomotive probably doesn't look much different from the last photo I showed you, I've added two small details today. The first job this morning was to glaze the cab windows. I did this using Micro Kristal Klear in the same way as I did the cab windows of the lorry I built for Jerusalem and more recently the Baguley-Drewry. Given how small the windows are this was the job of just a few moments -- much easier than trying to cut plastic to size!

The second detailing step was to re-varnish the smokebox and chimney. I'd previously sealed the paint using an aerosol of Humbrol satin varnish. I think the satin effect is glossy enough to represent the paint you usually find on a steam locomotive as gloss paints/varnish looks, at least to my eyes, too shiny in this scale. The one area where satin varnish doesn't work though is the smokebox and chimney. If you look at any photo of any steam engine you'll notice the this area of the loco is quite matt in appearance. I'm assuming this is to do with the heat either requiring a different paint, or altering the paint to make it appear matt. Either way, I gently brush painted on a little Humbrol matt acrylic varnish to add this extra detail.

And finally ... I'm giving advance notice to all those Quarry Hunslet addicts out there that I think there will only be two more posts before this build is complete!

Quarry Hunslet: It's All In The Details

So having touched up the few areas that needed work after spraying the body colour I set about touching in the remaining details.

First up were the buffer beams. Now as I mentioned in the previous post I'd bought a pot of Buffer Beam Red acrylic paint from Humbrol's rail colour series, and I had intended to use this to (funnily enough) paint the buffer beams. I was rather shocked when I opened the tin to find that the paint colour really doesn't match the sticker and probably falls foul of the trade description act for not really being red. Having said that it does appear pretty close to the buffer beam on the N gauge Graham Farish loco I own so maybe it is accurate. Either way I thought I'd give it the benefit of the doubt and duly painted both the front and back buffer beams. Well it's definitely not right, or at least it didn't look right, so it was painted over with a thin layer of Model Color red (70.947) which I think you will agree looks the part.

Next I dealt with the window frames, which were more than a little taxing. I wanted the frames to be brass so this required painting them black and then using the same lacquer I used for the cab controls while ensuring I didn't get any on the red body paint. Of course I managed to slip in a few places and so I've had to touch up the paint slightly, but it really isn't noticeable. The windows still need glazing but I can't do that until I've varnished everything so as not to frost the "glass".

After the windows I moved on to fitting the handrails. Annoyingly the left one looks on even more of an angle than it did before, goodness knows why. Anyway the knobs were painted black before fixing to the body so that I didn't run the risk of getting black paint on the saddle tank. The rails were then painted in-situ and everything glued into place. The final step was to slip the whistle through the hole in the mounting bracket, dot a spot of gel superglue on the end of the pipe and then rotate into position.

I'm really pleased with how the details have pulled together, and it certainly looks a lot better than it did a few days ago!

Quarry Hunslet: Inside The Cab

Before I had all the problems painting the outside of the locomotive I'd painted the inside of the cab while I could still easily get a paintbrush in there. There are two parts to this, painting the backhead controls and painting the inside of the cab walls.

The first job was to touch in the details on the backhead and for this I used three paints. I gave the main backhead surface a light dry brushing with RailMatch oily steel to help bring out some of the details and I used Humbrol acrylic buffer beam red (number 406 from their Rail Colour range) for the regulator handle. For the brass I used Alclad 2 polished brass lacquer. This isn't something I'd used before but it gave just the effect I was looking for. You are supposed to airbrush the lacquer over a gloss surface to give a high shine finish, but I brush painted it over a satin surface which gives a more aged look. I used this lacquer rather than a paint for two reasons. Firstly I couldn't seem to find a brass paint in any of the ranges my local model shop stocks, but more importantly I'm not really a fan of using metallic paints at this scale, unless they are being sparingly dry brushed. I find that the shiny flecks in the metallic paints (that give them the metallic look) are always fairly large and just look really wrong at the small scale we are working with. This lacquer doesn't suffer from this problem at all and I'm betting it would look fantastic airbrushed onto a larger area.

The second job was to paint the inside of the cab walls. From photos, and from having visited the odd cab over the years, I've noticed that generally the bottom half of the walls are painted black, while the top half is usually a buff or cream colour. I'm guessing the use of the lighter colour is to make the cab feel bigger and less claustrophobic. Given the paints I had to hand I used ivory and black from the Model Color range; painting the ivory on first and then masking to get a straight edge to paint the black against.

Personally I think both parts have worked really well, and now that they are assembled together it really does look good.

Quarry Hunslet: The Crimson Horror

So, as you may have seen from my rather brief previous post, painting the main body colour of the locomotive did not at all go to plan. Fortunately it was possible to rescue the situation as you can see from todays photo.

Here in Yorkshire we haven't had much sun today which explains why the colour looks way brighter than it really is (the camera over compensating for the terrible light). In reality I've painted it using Humbrol acrylic #20 "crimson", which is quite a dark red. There are a number of areas that need touching up but in general the main areas are perfect.

Now you've seen that the situation was recoverable, let's back up and see how I ended up in quite such a mess. After painting the cab controls (which I'll come back to in a later post) I carefully masked up the inside of the cab while it was still separate from the body and then glued it into place. I then masked up the rest of the model (using the excellent Tamiya masking tape). I also used some Humbrol maskol at the edges of the tape, or where it was difficult to line up the tape properly, including around the cab windows. I then sprayed on the Humbrol crimson paint.

My first mistake was to use too much paint. Paul had warned me that red in particular is quite translucent and so benefits from a white primer. In fact this red paint was so translucent that I could see the white primer through it in places. To stop the white showing through I had to add more paint. Once the paint was dry (or at least I thought it was) I noticed that it appeared to have run on one of the cab side panels. It was annoying but I could probably have lived with that. What I couldn't live with was what happened next.

Now I don't know quite what the problem was but as I removed the maskol I'd used around the windows it pulled off the top layer of paint leaving just the primer behind. If this wasn't bad enough as I tried to remove the masking tape from inside the cab I popped one of the side panels loose. Finally when trying to remove the masking tape from the chimney it simply fell off. At this point I was not a happy bunny and certainly not relishing the thought of repainting. One of the main problems was that I wouldn't be able to mask things up in the same way now the cab was (mostly) attached to the footplate, so I decided to brush paint instead of spraying.

Before I could repaint I had to finish removing the old paint which given it was all on a metal surface came off quite easily with the aid of cotton wool buds, nail polish remover and blunted cocktail sticks. I did have to replace the rivet transfers though as they came off with the paint. So once everything was nicely cleaned up I brushed on Humbrol acrylic grey primer and left it to dry. To say it was streaky was a bit of an understatement but I decided I'd continue on and brush on the top coat; still Humbrol acrylic crimson, but from a small pot. This was definitely not a wise move. It turns out that none of the Humbrol acrylic paints brush on well; I suppose they might if diluted, but then I'd probably have the same translucent problem. By this stage it was looking pretty horrible, so I started to strip the paint off for a second time.

Once the paint was cleaned off for a second time, I again masked the black areas and the inside of the cab as well as I could and sprayed on the primer. This time I went for a red oxide primer in the hope that even if the crimson was slightly translucent it wouldn't show up. The primer went on well, so I then sprayed the crimson again, being careful to use as little paint as possible. After leaving it to dry over night I carefully removed the masking tape and this time everything went to plan. Not only did the paint stay attached but I hadn't ruined the cab interior either.

So I now have some tidying up to do (the edge of the cab roof for instance), and then I can finish painting in the details.

Quarry Hunslet: Primed and Ready

While I was a little worried about actually having the skills to build this locomotive, I'm also worried about my painting skills after the disaster that was the Baguley-Drewry. I have just invested in an airbrush (more on that in a later post), but for this loco I'm going to stick with what I know and use aerosol cans of Humbrol paint. There are two main changes to my approach from last time. One I'm going to take more time to ensure each colour is fully dry before masking, and two I'm using more expensive masking tape (Tamiya).

The first step to painting was to dismantle the locomotive to remove the motor and the cylinders etc. I then primed it with a white primer meant for painting cars to provide a good base colour for the later colours.

I'm still treating the cab and body separately until I've painted the cab controls which is my it is missing in the middle photo. I decided the next colour would be the black which makes up the majority of the body, so I masked off the tank, buffers and cylinder covers (the purple stuff is Humbrol Maskol, which I really should remember to only use with the window open) and sprayed on a couple of layers of satin black. After leaving the paint to dry for an hour or so I gently eased off the tape and maskol and was pretty impressed with how it has turned out; there are a few spots that need touching up but I can live with that. Buying decent masking tape was certainly worth every penny.

Next up will be painting the inside of the cab so I can finally attach the cab to the footplate before spraying the main body colour.

Quarry Hunslet: The Best Job In The World!

I'm sure that most of you wanted to be a steam engine driver at some point in your life. I know I did as a small child and my afternoon on the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway back in 2011 certainly reinforced how much fun it is. This of course means that we need a driver to enjoy the Quarry Hunslet once it's completed. Fortunately the kit comes with a suitably posed figure.

As with the other whitemetal castings in this kit the driver didn't need much cleanup and a quick blast of grey primer gave a suitable base colour. Painting was done using Model Color acrylics (dark flesh, black, burnt umber, white, flat blue, and scarlet) and then the whole thing was dusted with Humbrol smoke weathering powder before a final blast of matt varnish toned things down even further. Not the best painted miniature I've ever done (I used to paint Warhammer figures, Night Goblins were my favourites) but certainly not the worst. Hopefully he'll enjoy the ride!

Distressing

So having assembled the Baguley-Drewry locomotive the next step was to paint it. My plan was to give it a well looked after finish, unfortunately that didn't happen.

The first step was to give it a coat of primer (Humbrol prime grey from an aerosol) which went on easily and didn't show up any areas that needed attention before the next layer of paint. According to the prototype information the loco would have originally been painted "hazard" yellow, with black side skirts and buffer blocks, so for want of any better ideas I'd picked up an aerosol can of Humbrol yellow gloss (I tend to prefer matt but gloss was all I could get). I masked off the side skirts and bufers and sprayed the model and left it to dry. This seemed to work well, and I had a wonderful smooth finish, so I then masked off the upper body so I could spray on the black paint (Humbrol again, this time black satin). Again this seemed to all go well, until I went to remove the masking tape.

When I removed the masking tape, not only did I find that in some places the black paint had run under the tape, but removing the tape had caused the yellow paint to bubble and lift. To say I was distressed was an understatement. My lovely smooth paint job was ruined. In fact I was so distressed that I couldn't bring myself to photograph the disaster before me. My initial plan to rescue the situation was to try and sand back the damaged areas and repaint, but I quickly decided that wasn't going to work well. I could have tried to strip the paint, but I didn't want to risk the metal parts coming loose. So in the end I decided to switch and finish the model in a run down and distressed state.

I used a combination of a small file, T-cut and a a blunted cocktail stick to remove the black paint that had leaked onto the upper body, as well as the badly bubbled yellow paint, and some areas that were actually okay but where I thought rust was likely to form. I then painted these areas using RailMatch dark rust. Once this had dried I then gently painted some water on to the rusted areas before sprinkling on some fine table salt. Once the water had dried the salt was well attached to the model. At this point I again masked off the black side skirts and buffers, before respraying the rest of the body yellow. This was then allowed to sit and dry thoroughly.

Once the yellow was dry I used a cocktail stick (the pointy end this time) to remove the salt grains which allowed the rust colour to show through, although in some places this also removed some of the the rust colour as well. Once all the salt was removed I dabbed small amounts of a rust weathering wash from Flory Models, onto the rusted areas, wiping most of it off with my finger in a downwards direction to simulate water having run across the surface -- I also brushed some of this wash across the black areas as well. The next step was then to use some of the Humbrol rust weathering powder (which was the free gift when I subscribed to one of the model railway magazines) to tone down the rest of the yellow paint so it didn't look like some areas where pristine while others were badly rusted. Final details, such as the window frames and door handles etc. were then picked out, and the makers name badge attached (with a drop of varnish rather than glue as it gives more time to position it accurately), before a light layer of satin varnish was applied to seal the paint to the model. Once the varnish was dry, the windows were glazed (in the same way as I glazed the windows of the lorry on Jerusalem), and then finally the windscreen wipers were fitted. It took me about 45 minutes to fit these, mostly as it took me about 30 minutes to find the one I dropped on the floor!

While this wasn't at all the way I had set out to paint the model, I am really happy with how it has turned out.

There are two things missing before it can be considered fully complete; couplings and a driver. The roof is only a push fit so once I find a driver model I can easily add one, and I'm not going to add couplings until I've decided on the track layout. The reason for this is that if I decided that the track plan is such that the loco will never run around a set of wagons, then I'll only need couplings at one end, at which point I wouldn't bother to fit both couplings, especially as I doubt they will improve the look of the model.

So while the process was distressing (in both senses of the word) I now have a model I'm really quite proud of.

Almost There

As you can see I've now finished the workman's open coach (other than fitting couplings, but I'm going to wait until I have something to couple it to). It took me a little longer than planned as I managed to misplace one of the sprues which forced me to tidy and clean my study before I could finish it. Given that I'm intending to use this wagon when the layout is dressed as a modern day industrial museum I've kept the weathering quite light and mostly focused on adding some dirt to the wooden floor. This treatment of the wood doesn't show up too well in the photo but I'm fairly happy with it.

The one thing that concerns me is that the model is very light which might affect it's running quality. On larger OO models there is nearly always somewhere to add some weight but on this model there really isn't any spare space. One option would be to box in one or more of the under seat areas and fill this with liquid gravity, but I think I have a better solution; I'm going to hide the weight in plain sight. My solution is to add reasonably heavy white metal tourists to the wagon. They will not only help bring the layout to life but will easily add extra weight. The only problem is, I'm struggling to find any appropriate figures. Dart Castings do a set of seated figures, but a) they are cast in pewter specifically to keep the weight down and b) I'm not sure from the picture that they will really work as modern day tourists. Does anyone know where I might find some more appropriate white metal seated figures?

Half-and-Half

So while I'm now pretty happy with the shape and pattern of the cobbles I've been trying to create I wasn't entirely happy with my first attempt at painting them. While the effect looked quite good it was very dark, and I think would have looked very wrong if used on a larger area, so I've had two more goes at getting the colour right.

I initially wondered if using black as the base coat was the main problem, so I masked off half of the area and re-sprayed using a can of Humbrol's grey primer as you can see on the right of the experiment. Obviously the grey would be too light now for the gaps between the cobbles so I ran a black wash over it to darken the gaps. On the way home yesterday I also picked up a few more useful paint colours and so dry brushed the whole thing (both the newly painted right hand side and the original left hand side). This time I started with RailMatch flint grey (which is quite a bit lighter than the Model Color London grey), and then used three Model Color paints, ivory, tan earth and cork brown. Finally I ran a black wash across the cobbles between the rails to simulate a dirtier area (dropped oil etc.).

I think the left hand side (black base coat) now looks much better. The use of the lighter flint grey and cork brown have improved the contrast between the cobbles and the gaps between them and I'm really happy with how it looks. The right hand side, however, definitely isn't right; the gaps between the cobbles just aren't dark enough and there isn't enough contrast.

So I think I can call this experiment a success. It may have taken me two attempts to shape the clay and two to paint the cobbles, but I'd much prefer to do that now with small amounts of track, clay and paint then on the full layout where having to start over would have been very wasteful in terms of time and money.

Maybe It's A Woollen Mill?

I'm still to decide exactly what business S. A. Tan and Sons are in, but maybe they are running a woollen mill?

I didn't want to fill the layout with sheep, so I've used just three from the pack of eight I bought from Langley Models (model number A70). For those that are interested (and to make sure I can remember) they were painted by first spraying with Humbrol grey primer before the face and shadow detail was painted black (Tamiya flat black). The wool was then dry brushed using first white (Tamiya) and then Ivory (Model Color).

If you look closely you might also be able to spot the squirrel.

Health And Safety: The Missing Details

The previous post was meant to be more than just a single photo, there was meant to be some textual content as well; specifically details on how I made the "Beware Of The Trains" sign. Unfortunately I managed to press Publish instead of Preview! So here are the details behind the making of the sign.

While I'm sure I could have bought a Beware of the Trains sign I decided that it was simple enough for me to have a go at making my own; after all it's only two colours, how hard can it be. The major problem is the size of the sign. The sign is approximately 3.5mm wide by 2.5mm tall. This means that the large letters are written in a 2.4pt font! Given that 10pt font is considered small you should be able to get a good idea just how small the letters are. If not then these photos should help.

The first photo really gives a good sense of the scale of the sign, it also shows that laser printed ink actually rubs off quite quickly! To stop this happening I painted on a thin layer of Humbrol enamel satin varnish before I tried handling the printed area. The printed and varnished paper was then stuck to some thin black cardboard (it's probably around 200gsm) and then carefully cut out using a sharp knife.

I made the post from some 0.6mm wire (the same stuff I used on the trees). I cut a piece about 1.4cm long to give me a 5 foot post (at 2mm to the foot that is 1cm) plus 4mm to go into the layout surface. I held the wire in a pin vice while I painted it with Tamiya flat black. Once the paint was dry, I used a cocktail stick to put a tiny drop of superglue on the back of the sign and then glued it to the post. Once the glue had set I gave the whole thing another thin coat of satin varnish. The final step was to drill a small hole (0.65mm drill bit) into the layout and slide the post in.

If you fancy making your own sign then feel free to re-use the SVG file I created (I've included both a white on black and a black on white sign). I did try converting the SVG to a more common format (like a PNG or a PDF) but in everycase the converted file lost too much detail making the small letters unreadable. I'd suggest opening the file with Inkscape and printing at the highest quality setting your printer can manage.

Take Me Home, Country Roads

Just a quick post today to show a couple of features I've recently completed.

Firstly I've re-done the road surface. If you remember from the previous post I painted the road grey and then washed it with thinned down black paint. This kind of worked but left the road quite black, almost looking as if it had just been rained on. Having repainted it a couple of times I still wasn't happy and so I had a look for a different solution. In the end I've gone with another Woodland Scenics product; Asphalt Top Coat. As the name suggests this is specifically designed as the top surface of a road. It is quite a thick paint that produces a fairly smooth level surface as it dries, so while I'm really happy with the colour and texture I might need to introduce a pot hole or two for realism.

As you can see I've now also painted and fitted the dry stone wall, and I hope you will agree that it looks a lot better than in it's unpainted form. In case I need to paint any more matching stone work in the future (or you wish to replicate the colouring) I first painted the entire wall with Tamiya Flat Black and then dry brushed on Woodland Scenics Stone Gray followed by Model Color Flat Earth, and finally Model Color Ivory. To take the shine off I then used a little Humbrol Smoke weathering powder. Having glued the wall in place I think it does a pretty good job of hiding the join between the land and the back scene (although I won't know for certain until I get the sky sorted). In fact I've decided to add a wall on the other side of the bridge for the same reason, although that wall will in turn be hidden by some shrubs, but that is a job for another day.

Now With Added Grime

As I mentioned in the previous post, while I'm happy with how the factory has come together it was way too clean to represent a dark satanic mill, even if it is owned by S.A.Tan and Sons! This photo shows the current build up of grime that I've added to make the model a lot more realistic. I've used three different things to add the necessary muck.

Firstly I used an aerosol can of soot black from Modelmates to really darken down the roof and to take the shine off all the side walls. I've previously used their mud brown weathering spray to good effect and the soot black was equally useful. The only problem with using an aerosol can is that it can be difficult to direct accurately, so I applied it as a mist above the model allowing it to fall like rain. To make this a little more realistic I did this mostly from the position of the chimney so the directionality would be right.

Once I was happy with the soot, I then set about touching up small areas using a dark brown chalk. I've had a box of chalks for as long as I can remember (I have a feeling they might have belonged to my Dad) and I lightly scraped a little of chalk onto a piece of paper, from where I applied it with a paintbrush. I mostly focused on the sides of the roof which were still too clean until I was fairly happy with how it looked, although a few areas were still a little too clean. Fortunately at this point the post arrived. I've recently subscribed to the British Railway Modelling magazine and whilst the magazine hasn't arrived yet, my free gift has. The free gift was a set of Humbrol weathering powders so I attacked the building with some smoke and dark earth to give the final result you can see here, which I think looks a lot more realistic. Now I just have to get on with some landscaping to give it a proper home.