The humble Graham Farish PAA that formed the basis of this model is a British made example from the Poole factory era, when exact body tooling and prototype paint didn't need to match...
No, this PAA is actually the generic PGA with a roof/canopy and some neat printing. I wanted to use it on my N gauge layout but how to turn this aging and tired model into something that could sit comfortably alongside the very latest from Revolution and Farish.
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| Here the model has been disassembled and had wheels replaced, buffers thinned, hand wheels carved off the chassis, the weird bottom discharge pipe removed, the roof ends smoothed and filled and the start of the extra framing added to the ends, this is 1mm square styrene and 1.4mm L section. |
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| Bodywork has been painted blue and work turns to chassis detail, adding V brake levers, new bottom discharge apparatus and hand wheels for the roof canopy. |
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| Here basic detailing finished and painted - but not yet weathered, seen on Paxton Road with an equally old tooling, though Chinese era, the Farish VBA. |
The end result mixes errors with finesse and hopefully a believable representation of the prototype whilst allowing a little of the original character of the Farish Poole era to shine through. It's a nod to N gauge's heritage, without Graham Farish we wouldn't have British N gauge today. It is nice to be able to tell that story in this piece of plastic, just another actor on the stage of Paxton Road. Until next time, more soon...
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The end result mixes errors with finesse and hopefully a believable representation of the prototype whilst allowing a little of the original character of the Farish Poole era to shine through. It's a nod to N gauge's heritage, without Graham Farish we wouldn't have British N gauge today. It is nice to be able to tell that story in this piece of plastic, just another actor on the stage of Paxton Road. Until next time, more soon...
Great weathering, but the tiny hand wheels seem to have gummed up holes...might be worth poking that through with a pin, as I assume the wheels would be used often and so unlikely to gum up?
ReplyDeleteI am aware some are gummed up, it doesn’t particularly bother me - they should be solid anyway, but I didn’t have any without holes in, the whole model was completed on a budget with love rather than fidelity in mind.
Deleteah cool, gum up all the holes then!
DeleteBear in mind the whole wagon is probably not much taller than the width of your thumb!
Delete