More Weathering of the Wagons

Posted on August 18, 2017 by Rob Pulham

A while ago you may recall my building of a couple of LMS vans, an LNER 12 ton van and an ex NBR coke wagon? Well I finally made a start on weathering them. There is still work to do but I am pleased with where 3 sessions with the airbrush have got me to so far.

Modified by CombineZP

More photo stacking

Posted on March 7, 2017 by Rob Pulham

I did a couple more photo stacking experiments and I am now getting the hang of it – the first of these being the better outcome.

Ex Caledonian Timber and Ore Wagons

Photo Stacking Experiments

Posted on March 2, 2017 by Rob Pulham

I have been experimenting with photo stacking for some time using the free software ‘CombineZP’ but only recently have I played about with changing the point of focus.

Here are some of my experiments using a couple of timber and ore wagons

Using a Canon 350D, first I used the manual point of focus setting for the following shots. They were then stacked using CombineZP.

Ex Caledonian Timber and Ore Wagons

Unfortunately there are only 5 manual focus points on the horizontal plane (there are only 3 in the vertical plane) and for some reason I cannot seem to select the one on the extreme left (unless it is selected but the LED has died). This means that some of it is out of focus.

The last photo is taken using the cameras Auto Depth of field function and then 6 shots stacked.

Ex Caledonian Timber and Ore Wagons

It has turned out to be the best of all of them.

Ghost Writers on the Wall

Posted on October 31, 2016 by Rob Pulham

A few posts back Dave mentioned ghost writing. I liked the idea but then thought that during my modelling period the ghosts would still be alive.

So an image search on’t tinterweb later had me a wall with a white painted advert for a long defunct local brewery. The image I found was taken at a slight angle so the image was manipulated with GIMP, sized and then printed onto a sheet of standard office paper. To get the image onto the brick work I coated the back using some “chalk” marker pens that I picked up in the stationary section in Boyes with chalk marks on wagons in mind. They are marketed as being for writing adverts on windows and blackboards.

Once the back was thoroughly coated I then drew over the image side with a pencil leaving an impression much like using tracing paper. This was then carefully painted in and a slight shadow painted around some of the letters as in the original. I am really rather pleased with the result.

Signs in situ

An amusing find at Guildex 2016

Posted on September 11, 2016 by Rob Pulham

Due to being busy collecting various items that I preordered etc. I didn’t take many photo’s at Guildex, but this caught my eye as an excellent piece of modelling. Having seen the 1:1 on a white van.

Dirty White Van

More from the condemned lines

Posted on April 4, 2016 by Rob Pulham

Last year I picked up several plastic wagon kit’s from the Guild’s Executor and Trustee lists which I collected at the Summer show. Amongst them was a couple of 3 Aitch wagon kits which I bought on ‘spec’ not knowing anything about them. I subsequently built one but decided they were not of the fidelity that I had become accustomed to so I put them in the small adds on several forums. I didn’t get any takers.

So I decided over Easter to built the second and detail them both as condemned wagons. I am quite happy with how they turned out.

Condemned 3 Aitch Wagons

Even More Jubilation, But It All Ends Here

Posted on March 7, 2016 by Rob Pulham

Last but not least, I did one of them in NBR livery.

I learned when reading Tatlow’s LNER wagon collection recently, that the NBR was the second largest of the constituents of the LNER (after the NER). This came as a bit of a surprise to me because I hadn’t realised just how big the NBR was. That’s probably one of the reasons that so many of the ex NBR wagons made it into the 1930’s still in faded NBR livery – there were so many of them.

Apart from the shabby paintwork, this one is in quite good condition for it’s age.

NBR-LNER 8 Ton Jubilee Vans – weathered

NBR-LNER 8 Ton Jubilee Vans – weatheren

More Jubilee Celebrations.

Posted on March 6, 2016 by Rob Pulham

Next up is the first of the earlier vans with wide-boards and beaded joints. This one also happens to be the one with a saggy roof – perhaps a sign of it’s age by this point.

NBR-LNER 8 Ton Jubilee Vans – weathered

I have really enjoyed the making and painting of these vans – probably why I have put so much time into them.

Celebrating the Jubilee

Posted on March 5, 2016 by Rob Pulham

Alongside the Slaters tank wagon I also made progress on weathering the Jubilee vans.

First up the other matchboard version, This one is lightly weathered to represent a recently painted example.

NBR-LNER 8 Ton Jubilee Vans – weathered

Another Shelf Queen bites the dust…

Posted on March 4, 2016 by Rob Pulham

Long before I had a blog I built a Slaters 14 ton tank wagon on which I replaced the plastic 3 part tank with one made of rolled brass. I eventually got some of the correct transfers for it and painted it like this in readiness for adding the transfers

It turned out that the transfers that I bought were of the rub down type and I couldn’t for the life of me work out how I was going to get them on over the straps and cables, so it languished on the shelf queens pile for the intervening years.

Move forward to Telford last year and Graham Beare was kind enough to loan me some of his collection of private owner wagon books and whilst browsing through them I found a photo of a Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Tar Distillation 14 ton tank wagon. I thought all my birthdays had come at once because after an appeal on the Guild site for spare Y&L transfers I had a spare set that I had planned to use on another rectangular tank at some point but thought that this would be a much better use.

Fast forward again to a few weeks ago when I was spraying the jubilee vans, I repainted the Slaters’ tank wagon into red oxide at the same time.

Then my dreams were shattered. When I referenced the photo and the transfers to the wagon itself, I quickly realised that not only were transfers physically too big for the available space on the tank, the wording was subtly different too. So back to the drawing board and plan B (or c,d e, etc…..).

The next plan was to try to cut the letters out using the Silhouette cutter and apply them a letter at a time.

Slaters 14 Ton Tank Wagon with replacement brass tank barrel

The first side took 3 sessions to get them all on and the second side took an hour to do the lot – it just flowed.

Now all I need to do is remember where I put the buffer heads and blacken them.

Piping hot, well almost…

Posted on February 22, 2016 by Rob Pulham

Although I didn’t get to doing any painting this weekend, last weekend along side the condemned van I also got the pipe wagon nearer to completion.

LNER Pipe Wagon

More from the NBR

Posted on July 13, 2015 by Rob Pulham

Although I haven’t managed any modelling while in Wakefield for what seems to be far too long I did manage a bit more painting and weathering over the weekend. Apart from couplings the NBR Dropside wagon is finished.

It’s not clearly visible anymore but I have added a paint date of ’19 in the crescent on the sides and weathered it based on photos of NBR 3 and 4 plank wagons in Tatlow.

Scratch Built NBR 4 Plan Dropside Wagon

Lastly I added it’s load after playing around painting that with some ‘wood’ coloured paint….

Scratch Built NBR 4 Plank Dropside wagon with assorted scratch built timber loads

A ropey tale……

Posted on July 6, 2015 by Rob Pulham

Modelling has taken a bit of a back seat to gardening and work the last few weeks so it was good to do a bit over the weekend.

I started by re-roping the NBR open – the sisal string that I used originally just didn’t look right. Chris found me something better and I also took Bob Alderman’s advice and ran it through block of beeswax which makes it much easier to use and smooths off the “hairiness” of the cord.

I took the opportunity of shredding a bit more sisal string and colouring it to add to the ‘straw’ packing. It all looks big in this close up but it’s quite fine cord at normal viewing distances.

Although they haven’t been in front of the camera yet I have painted and added transfers to the NBR dropside and another Slaters Salt wagon. Plus I have weathered the wood insides of both the dropside and the NBR Floor Cloth wagon that I built many moons ago. Once I have weathered the outsides I will take photos.

A bit more painting and Weathering

Posted on May 5, 2015 by Rob Pulham

In between a visit to the NE Steam Gala at Locomotion and other bit’s and pieces I had the paints out and got the NBR4 Plank weathered.

7mm scale Packing case made from Coffee stirrers

And lastly a couple of shots of the latest examples together.

Locker wagon and NBR 4 Plank

A touch more weathering

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Rob Pulham

A couple more wagons have passed through the weathering bench.

This one I have been tinkering with for 6 or 8 weeks in total – doing something at it each week but not being satisfied with it until now.

Loco coal anyone?

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Rob Pulham

Another one that got some weathering attention last weekend was the LMS coal wagon.

The sunlight has lightened the inside somewhat – much more than in reality.

I am undecided as to whether I put a few lumps of stray coal inside to finish it off.

Nearing the end of the line….

Posted on February 13, 2015 by Rob Pulham

I couldn’t resist a couple of photos of the latest wagon builds together.

Hit by the weather…

Posted on February 10, 2015 by Rob Pulham

Another one to get hit by the weather is the midland 10 ton Brake Van.

And then I noticed that I hadn’t painted the lamp…….

Another From North of the Border

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Rob Pulham

This weekend hasn’t seen any construction works but I did added transfers to the open wagon and start to weather it. I also finished the weathering on another NBR 8 ton box van.

I am on the look out for some more of these to use as the basis for some semi scratch builds.

I used this van as a bit of a test to see if IPA works the same as meths for manipulating acrylic paint after it’s dried and I am pleased to say it does and it isn’t quite as aggressive as meths which is a bonus – I have had a couple of instances with meths where I have inadvertently taken the paint back to bare plastic.