This is another attempt at distressing a Laser Cut Wood Kit. Again it was painted with acrylic brown paint and weathered with dilute enamel black. I then used the same method as the previous platelayers huts. This time the planking runs across, so the scalpel was used in the other direction. a couple of coats of wood stain then followed.
Again not quite finished, this Coal Merchant’s has been made this week using a Laser Cut kit, but a card cut instead of my preferred wood.
I find the laser cut card kits more difficult to distress and I usually revert to my usual weathering methods with enamel over acrylic. I also find my method of doing mortar using poly filler harder to do with Card Cut Buildings.
I always use real coal for O gauge projects, although I have been known to use O gauge ballast, painted black and flicked with gloss varnish. The number of times I see layouts with coal merchants with just one grade of coal, Realistically most had at least two or three. I went for Lump, Household and that horrible Nutty Slack!
To keep the weight down on my models, I used balsa wood for forming the coal mounds.
When the Model is eventually planted on the layout it will be blended and sacks and a coal weighing machine added.
Although not quite finished yet, I thought I would share these laser cut kits I have built and painted this week.
I have tried to give the wood a distressed look rather than a straight weathering. This was achieved by firstly painting them in acrylic brown paint and them scratching a lot off with a scalpel, coating with wood stain and then varnishing. The chimneys were painted and then the bricks picked out with poly filler for the mortar, this was also stained.
Final loco in this batch is a D16/3. What a great model this really is, it portrays them as I remember seeing them at Norwich in the late 1950’s. Occasionally you could see them after a cleaning, but that did not happen much towards the end.
There are plenty of black and white photographs, but a lot less full colour. However I managed to track down a few in the condition I required. Here are the results-
Again these models are for my friend in Australia, he has become quite a collector of DRS traction over the years.
37038 is a limited edition from several years ago and apart from detailing one buffer beam and giving it a medium weather it is virtually ‘out of the box’.
The second loco, 37703 is far from standard and is a complete re-spray from R3 Re-sprays, and my job was to detail one buffer beam, re-instate emergency cut offs and give a light weathering.
This 37 is for a friend in Australia who remembers the Class 37’s on the Great Eastern Region of BR in the late 70’s – Early 80’s, just before many moved to Scotland.
The Loco is one of Heljan’s latest centre head code models, although several modifications were necessary to bring it into the timescale required for this loco.
All transfers were purchased, which included new marker dots for the head code and numbers and overhead warning flashes.
A banger plate for above the screw couplings was fashioned out of plastic card and fitted, the original pair of holders above the centre head code were removed. A new centre lamp bracket was made from brass and fitted. The whole area around the removed holders and the new lamp bracket was masked and re-sprayed.
A quite heavy weathering was required so I researched Class 37’s around the chosen period. They did become very grimy, very quickly, although the sides and yellow ends did seem to get a token cleaning, I have tried to portray a loco in this condition.
After fitting the extra 6″ to the layout and sorting the fiddle yard join, I tested the whole layout electrically with an old controller and jumper leads. Thankfully all points and tracks worked according to plan and the first loco and stock was run. Full wiring will follow soon.
Next task was to place the buildings on the layout in their revised positions, due to the extra 6″. Although I am not committed to these positions, they are likely to be near. I have made an extra item since my last post on buildings, it is a water tank built again from a laser cut kit. It is a superb kit but I have to say it is a bit larger than I expected so this may move over to my Steam Shed layout and another smaller one purchased. It is well worth having a good ‘play’ and see what looks best, end or side on etc.
As I have no indoor facilities for working on layouts, most work is completed on our picnic bench in the garden. This is why I have buildings in all states of manufacture, these are indoor fill in jobs when the weather is inclement outside.
I also added the ‘buffer stops’ at the end of the sidings and bay platform. These stops are made up of Scratch built, Peco and combinations of the two.
The Goods shed looks a bit blotchy, but all will be revealed later. My basic paint work laid down, I can now put the mortar in with fine Polyfilla and when dry and cleaned a coat of Coloron Wood Dye is wiped over to lessen the white effect of the Polyfilla. I will post pictures later.
Well, a lot has happened on the embryo layout. After much thought I have added another 6″ on to the run around end of the layout. The main reason was that I wanted to run all available loco’s on the layout and not be frustrated because some were too large to run around. It now takes everything that I have, likely to get and my friends loco’s. I simply made a 6″ x 24″ box and glued it on the end. The board now measures 6′ 6″ x 2 . This move will make it non transportable in my car so unlikely to be exhibited!
The next thing I tackled was to marry the fiddle yard to the board with the station ‘neck’. This was achieved by means of a template to position the baseboard locator’s. I had left the ends of the track on both the Fiddle and the board unglued to allow me some flexibility when getting both tracks lined up, thankfully they were nearly spot on and little movement was needed before final fixing.
You will see a spirit level – this is a vital tool to ensure all is correct.
I must admit while doing this job I had some strange thoughts! I was making this layout as a terminal station, possibly a station that was a through station before the line was truncated because of poor loadings, track washed away or whatever reason I could think of. What about if I made another similar fiddle yard for the other end! Its worth considering even if it could be ‘down the line a bit’.
Another couple of O gauge Heljan Diesel Locomotives for a friend, Shaun Harvey. Shaun has recently appeared in a Model Magazine with his N gauge layout, but like a lot of us, he is moving to O gauge. I won’t go into his plans, but an exciting new layout is on the way over the next year or so.
These loco’s are numbered to the pre-tops system without the ‘D’ prefix. This puts them in the 1968-72 era. Both are light to Medium weathering and are DC at present. although I think Shaun has plans for DCC.
