Friday Update: Twenty-seven Five Twenty-two…

Every season this week, from the heaviest rain to the strongest gusts to the blue-est sky, and inside the Ruston LBs are nearing completion and thoughts can turn to what will be next on the bench once again...

That feeling of renewal that comes from commission modelling is one of the things I feel so grateful for - it is my varied client base and their own wonderful interests that mean I can go from standard gauge BR blue weathering to 7/8ths narrow gauge to 009 to Paddington bear!

The Ruston LBs are now in their final colours. I enjoy painting these large models, and contrary to common sense I aim for an imperfect finish. Patchy colour, a little overspray perhaps? These things are a great base to work into a weathered finish. Layering on washes, micro painting and dry brushed effects on top of this you get a wonderful depth to the colour and the feel of the real thing that is difficult to achieve when you have a consistent solid smooth colour to work from. The green LBU is nearly finished now, the yellow LB is progressing through finishing, I need to make sure all the details are painted before adding a sealing coat of clear lacquer and moving onto the weathering process.

On my own bench I've found relaxation and head space in a few well practiced tasks. I've begun weathering another of the 'stock' of ready to run wagons, this time a Rapido Canada 50ft box car. Working from photos I've toned down the under frame and begun pin washes and detail washes to bring out the lovely detail of the moulding. This will benefit from drying for a few days before adding a little more relief to the finish and tying things together with the airbrush. I was a little frustrated though, the wheel sets are high quality but I wanted to fit Kadee 'Code 88' profile wheels. These are my 'go to' standard across the collection, visually a big improvement, but in this case the pin points on the Rapido wheel sets are much 'tighter' and the axle bearing homes smaller as a result. This means the Kadee wheel sets don't spin, even actually bowing the side frames out slightly. Poor show, and a shame.

My ongoing experimenting with N continues with a pair of Ratio kits, to get the feeling of size and proportion. These literally fell together and were cleanly moulded. I think I've glued the line side hut together in a mirror image though, oooops! More on the N journey soon in both locomotive/stock terms and a scheme for the first 'experimental' cameo, with a hint of what may come after too...

As well as rolling stock, I've been pushing forwards on Beaverbrook's scenery as I've been itching to get some of the road painted and make a start on greening things up - to that end ground work was built up with fibre mould plaster, the road sides smoothed with Woodland Scenics smooth-it, painted in emulsion. Track sleepers and rails were painted in enamels and track ballasted in Woodland Scenics fine grey, and then, finally, I could apply Humbrol gloss 5 to the road surface and dust it generously with talc! This process sounds insane, but produces wonderfully realistic tarmac in the smaller scales - there is so much road to do on Beaverbrook, but I've got a stock of tinlets. A ride on the Ffestiniog to Blauenau on Saturday awaits this weekend and it's half term and the Jubilee so work output may well be low next week - I will strive to keep some content feeding through. Until then though, enjoy the weekend and try and squeeze some trains or modelling in somewhere! More soon...