"Voiding the Warranty" - Mol's experiments in 21mm gauge

[Mol_PMB]

Just now, Westcorkrailway said:

Is it Blackwater? I was only there yesterday 

Correct! I'll have to think of a prize...

[derek]

1 hour ago, Mol_PMB said:

PS if you can guess that one correctly, this one is a bit harder but should still be possible to work out if you look closely. I was a bit older by now:

Reminiscent of Tommy Tiernan at the back of the bus in Father Ted 

[Mol_PMB]

2 minutes ago, derek said:

Reminiscent of Tommy Tiernan at the back of the bus in Father Ted 

The old railcar was going nowhere but I couldn’t resist sitting in it. 
It was built for the same railway as the steam loco that the toddler me was standing on in the other photo. 

[jhb171achill]

3 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

Just back from a stressful long weekend with elderly parents. There is no let up.

One tiny ray of sunshine was finding some old family photos, including this one:

Who's going to be the first to identify where this was?

 

Ennis

 

1 hour ago, derek said:

Reminiscent of Tommy Tiernan at the back of the bus in Father Ted 

Never saw a colour pic inside one of those.  Standard CIE bus upholstery in plastic "mock-leather", of the time. Some had a lighter brown shade, and others a grey-ish blue colour. The Loughrea coach, 1904, had the lighter brown shade. On the day I travelled on that line, somebody had added, in black biro, written right across one of the seats, 

"FAREWELL TO THE DUNSANDLE EXPRESS"!

(Which is the title of my forthcoming book....)

[Mol_PMB]

I have succumbed to retail therapy and bought another loco. I must confess that I'm not a big fan of the BnT livery on the GM locos, preferring the later supertrain. But for my 1960s modelling period I can't really avoid having a 141 in the BnT scheme and seeing that the remaining stocks of MM locos at Rails are dwindling I have made a purchase of B147. 

Of course, this will be regauged, renumbered and weathered in due course. B153 was photographed at Quartertown Mill, and also at Fenit, so is my preferred candidate. My childhood memories of a later era are of the 15x series which seemed ever-present around Limerick, so this will make a good companion to 156 which I have done already. 

I fully expect to realise in a few weeks time that I have missed out on a Black Friday deal...

Meanwhile, my rake of grain wagons is gradually being weathered. Photos in a few days time!

[Mol_PMB]

There’s definitely a corrosive atmosphere in my house. Newly-painted wagons seem to end up badly rusted in just a few weeks. 

The CIE grain vans are starting to look pretty disreputable too. There’s still quite a bit of work to do on all of them. 

Trying for something like this on the light grey one:

[flange lubricator]

3 minutes ago, Mol_PMB said:

There’s definitely a corrosive atmosphere in my house. Newly-painted wagons seem to end up badly rusted in just a few weeks. 

The CIE grain vans are starting to look pretty disreputable too. There’s still quite a bit of work to do on all of them. 

Trying for something like this on the light grey one:

Hopefully I got drop a few of mine there too so they will become as rusty , great job on the weathering Paul . 

[Galteemore]

That’s spectacular. Tutorial would be nice!  

[Mol_PMB]

6 minutes ago, Galteemore said:

That’s spectacular. Tutorial would be nice!  

It's difficult to do and photo/video at the same time!

The process is basically as follows:

1. Paint and letter your model as usual.

2. Spray with acrylic varnish.

3. Leave to dry for 48 hours or more.

4. Find some photos of your prototype. Paint what you see, not what you think it ought to be!

5. Using enamels, put some matt black and some matt bauxite on a palette. I use Humbrol 33 and Precision GNR Freight Wagon Brown, but it's not too critical. With an old brush, randomly mix the colours and dab onto the model to create dark rusty patches. Some variation in the shade is good, and don't worry if it's slightly darker than you want it to turn out in the end. You'll end up with something like this:

6. Put the wagons aside for 48 hours or more, while the paint hardens.

7. Select a couple of lighter matt colours for your palette this time. I used a lighter bauxite (Precision BR freight wagon bauxite pre-1965) and an orange (Humbrol 82). Again, you'll want to use slightly varying mixes of these colours. Also, prepare a small dish of white spirit and some squares of kitchen roll / paper towel. 

8. Using a fine brush, draw a few fine vertical orangey lines at the top of where you want the rusty streaks (this should be over the existing dark rusty patches). This is probably a thicker blob of paint than the ideal, as I said it's hard to do and photograph at the same time:

9. Now use a flat brush. Dip in in white spirit and wipe it partly dry on the kitchen towel. Then draw it vertically down the model over the fresh blobs of paint. You'll get something like this:

10. Clean the flat brush on the kitchen roll, dip in white spirit again and partly dry. This is important to remove traces of orange paint from the flat brush. You can now work at those same streaks again, or you're ready to do some more streaks. 

11. Do the rest of the streaks on the panel, in several stages. Make sure you always draw the flat brush vertically down - angled streaks look wrong.

12. If you're not happy with any of the streaks, using the clean flat brush with white spirit will remove them and you can re-do them in the same way. 

13. Be patient, do a bit at a time. The colours may change a bit as the paint dries, you can always come back later and add more (perhaps using slightly different shades).

It doesn't always look perfect in cruel close-up but from a distance the effect is quite pleasing, especially where the rust streaks go over the lettering.

Enda's pristine-finished ones are nice, but I like my wagons to be work-weary!

 

[Tullygrainey]

Excellent stuff Paul. Thanks for the step-by-step.

[Mol_PMB]

A few more pics illustrating the process. After a while you get a knack for how damp/dry the flat brush should be, and how hard/soft to press, to get slightly different effects. Trial and error, but if you don’t like it you can wipe off (within a minute or so) and try again. 

In my opinion a palette of different colours is essential for weathering, mixing a marginally different shade from 2 or 3 base colours each time: