The making and many photo’s of Norton Wood have already appeared on this website, but with no stock Some stock has now been obtained, albeit not weathered yet, here are the results.
This Layout is now owned by Graham Minshall and will appear at approx four Exhibitions in 2018 – see Exhibitions section for details.
When I sold Marsh Lane to Nick, I also sold him some stock. After a couple of Exhibitions, Nick has decided to start weathering his stock. All are lightly weathered. I must admit on Class 47’s, using ‘wash & wipe’ to get dirt into the roof grills really brings them alive.
This wagon was made by Graham and painted and weathered by myself.
I can not comment on the making of the wagon, but Graham certainly had to call on all his modelling techniques to finish it.
As far as painting was concerned it was a medium to difficult job with ‘lots’ of masking and quite a bit of hand painting. The transfers were OK, but could have been better– perhaps I should have varnished the transfers first! I put two coats of varnish on the transfers after applying them to ensure they stayed in place.
The weathering was performed by several washes and a little dry brushing on the body – then my usual methods on the chassis.
I am reasonably happy with the results – although it could have been better with more durable transfers.
This was a numbering and weathering project for Graham. When he purchased the loco, it had the revised transfers in the box. However I still had some of the ‘pink topped’ weird ones left from another Loco. These original transfers never went down very well with modellers, and a more conventional set was available on request. Well, I used the old type and if used as stated, do a very good job.
The weathering is generally light on the body and medium on the roof and underframe.
This was a renumbering and weathering exercise for some insulated/meat vans. All renumbering was carried out using Fox Transfers. The Fox numbers were slightly smaller than the Dapol ones so any number change meant the whole number and not a partial had to be done.
The Dapol numbers come off with ‘white spirit’ very easily. Now a word of warning – not only do the numbers come off easily – so do ‘all’ the other tampo printed items. This means if doing a wash to highlight the planking – all the other details will disintegrate !!! – solution, all tampo printed items to be kept must be varnished before weathering and washes applied. I used two coats and left for 48 hours to totally dry.
Meat Van
Pale Blue Insulated Vans
White Insulated Vans
Here we have two Heljan BG’s that have been light-medium weathered for my friend Shaun for his latest layout.
The bodies/roof were lightly weathered – but the bogies and underframe were medium weathered. I have also picked out all hinges in dark grey to highlight the doors.
After seeing the prices of O gauge rolling roads, and nearly falling off my seat, I decided to go my own way.
What I wanted:-
A metre of track to test Loco’s on – DC to start with – later DCC!
A Rolling Road to Run In Loco’s
A Fitted Magnet to Test ‘Spratt and Winkle Couplings’.
A Jig to ensure all ‘Spratts’ are at the same height when on the track.
A Jig for the Loops for use with the ‘Spratts’
A small work area for ‘fiddling’
Permanent DC Controller with power Clips.
Space to add a DCC controller and/or a tablet.
Storage for ancillary items, Rollers etc.
Well, attached photo’s are the results so far – Although I made this in ‘O’ Gauge – I would have thought that it can be done in any gauge, within reason! The cost so far is approx £80 as most items are second-hand, nearly new.
Further work to be done on the storage boxes so will update as they happen
While browsing Ebay I saw a rather old Westdale kit on a Buy it Now. It said it was ‘complete’ but I had my doubts. I duly purchased the kit for the BIN price and waited for its arrival.
On arrival it was clearly not complete, only having one end was not good, but at least I could use it as a template to make another. Although the kit was basic I have to say it went together very well and after adding a few extra bits I fashioned myself, I was very pleased with the results considering there was no instructions.
I painted the model in early BR Crimson livery and then did a medium weathering job. I may well change this to heavy later, so that I can run it with a couple of milk tankers to form an early sixties ‘milk train’.
The request for this weathering exercise was for a faded Loco – not necessarily filthy but ‘aged’ as opposed to heavy weathering.
Loco’s used in Washer Plants were particularly vulnerable to age fade and fade by harsh chemicals used in carriage cleaning. This also stopped the build up of grease and grime.
I have done partial fades before in OO but never in O and never 80% fade. After some (a lot) thought I decided I would not remove the original transfers and spray over the top of them. This way they would just be visible under the fade and I could position new transfers over the top.
I masked all windows, the black cab roof, which I would weather later, and both wasp striped ends.
I used Railmatch Faded BR Blue and it worked very well. My conventional weathering then followed over the whole Loco.
. When I asked my friend Graham what colour he wanted the wagon painted. Black, Olive Green or Yellow/Grey. His reply was ‘rust’ !
Graham had seen a well weathered wagon at an Exhibition and asked me if I could have a go at getting it as disgusting as possible without going into fantasy.
After a base colour of black, followed by three washes of dilute enamel paints, I put the ground in rust on with designer gouache – here are the results after a coat of matt varnish to seal the whole wagon.
