Friday Update: Twenty-four Ten Twenty-four...
It's been a busy week for one reason and another - a few unexpected days in Pembrokeshire, whilst a nice break, were for a sad reason. Back home and we collected a puppy, so now I've got a 9 year old Dachshund and an 8 week Labrador. You can imagine...
That has meant not a great deal of progress on commissions - and a rather lacklustre Friday Update! However, that does mean you get to see two new N gauge projects - already in primer... on the right we have a Rudd, centre a Caustic Soda TTA. The Rudd were conversions from Grampus with rebuilt ends, airbrakes and roller bearings - I have used the NGS kit and added door bangers from fret etch, finer wheels and replaced the axle boxes - carving off the detail of the oil/grease bath and adding a slice of 1mm diameter styrene - a bit of a compromise but it works in this scale. The TTA will be an ICI wagon, I used a Coventry Rail Works chassis and modified the NGS body to add more pronounced skirting and a touch of height. The distinctive ends are buffers from the Kernow OO gauge PRA! There are compromises of course, but once painted it will look the part I'm sure - just to the left is another chemical tank I've done previously, using the NGS kit on a different Coventry Rail Works chassis - this one a Phosphoric Acid tank. There is great variety in the 80/90s chemical tank fleet that isn't represented with kits or RTR so it's nice to be able to at least try and represent some of this in miniature.
The one piece of customer work to show, and it's not finished yet, is weathering this Rapido LMS diagram wagon. I've added the basic wash so far, there is a way to go, but its a nicely restrained tooling from the fledgling UK firm, some very nice tool making - responding well to some grime.
Down in Pembrokeshire I had some nice weather - and the opportunity to see a train for the first time at 'Fishguard and Goodwick' station! The omni-present 197s have sadly/gladly spread to South Wales and we saw a 3 car unit arrive at the station - earlier in the week I'd been looking through an old copy of 'Freight Only - Wales and Scotland' and the photo on the right (copied from the book but by Michael Rhodes) taken in 1982 shows significantly more infrastructure! Enough traffic to warrant the Class 08 in the coal yard too if you zoom in... change for the better? Hmmm...
Out of season, Pembrokeshire is quiet AND beautiful - blue skies and plenty of walks were a nice way to spend a few days. Returning home and 24 hours later an 8 week old Humbrol 98 liveried Labrador puppy has arrived... quite how my beloved Dachshund 'Bronwen' will cope remains to be seen!
Who knows what my weekend holds - but the chance of much modelling is pretty slim! That said, I should be able to get a 'Live' session arranged this evening, around 7-7.30pm - if you're about, see you then. Until next time, more soon...
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Morning James. That beach in Pembrokeshire looks like a stone skimmers paradise! Balm for the soul I hope. The kit built wagons look great, I'm hoping to build a couple of N gauge society vanwide kits soon. I toyed with the idea of buying the new sonic models vanwides (they look superb) but in truth, I can't justify £69 for three little box vans. I know they have full brake gear etc. The idea of building my own kits is attractive and a chance to develop my skills, the N gauge society kits are only a fiver although they have a basic chassis in comparison to the sonis models. Previous kit building efforts generally fail with the paint job and decals, they just don't blend in well with my RTR stock and therefore seldom get used. Have you done a blog post about finishing n gauge wagon kits or wagons that may help? Am looking forward to my copy of compendium when it arrives. Have a relaxing (with a puppy in the house!?) weekend. Take care.
ReplyDeleteHi Tom - thank you, well, the stones aren't quite flat enough for decent skimming, neither is the sea ever smooth enough when I go! It's a nice place to sit though, the noise of the waves on the rocks is a sort of brown noise balm. You mention building kits, the thing to practice is finesse - challenge yourself to assemble them as squarely as possible with little or no gaps... painting? You need an airbrush for the bodywork, anything else puts on too much paint. Gloss lacquer before any decals, satin lacquer after. VMS make great water based ones you can spray direct from the bottle.
DeleteThank you for the advice James. Satin lacquer to finish off is new to me. I usually go for matt. Does satin provide a better surface for weathering? My brush painting efforts have been amateurish so far and I can see I've used too much or too thick a layer of paint. I will try and borrow an airbrush as I don't build enough kits to justify buying one at the moment. I do have a good engineers square somewhere to help me make sure everything is squared, I suspect I'm a little impatient at times too! Cheers.
ReplyDeleteYou don’t need a square, just eye ball it. The gap could still be there even if it was straight…
DeleteThe airbrush, now that’s an investment. Just a cheap set from eBay will do, send me an email if you’re struggling to find something and I’ll recommend the one I use, which usually are about £100 for the compressor and an airbrush.
Cute puppy!
ReplyDeleteThanks Paul, she is lovely if a bit prone to peeing just as you’re about to put her out! Early days but her and Bronwen are beginning to accept one another!
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