Bits and Pieces

A mixture of recent workbench happenings...


The various bits to fill the Sherwood Forest-style open wagon have now been added to the wagon.  The tool box is a Black Dog/Sidelines resin casting (depending on which scale you use it in!), as are the re-railing ramps. The spanner carelessly left on top of the box, and the hammer are Duncan Models castings.  The jerry can is a Cararama moulding from the garage set used as an interior to a building on the never-completed Misterton Fen Tramway.  The wagon load is now, well, loaded, I've used 'tacky wax' to fix things in place:

Turning to the out-of-use bogies, I spent some time treating and painting the Parkside wheels to make them look less model-like.  Rather than paint them all over I opted to blacken the axles using gun blue, then spent some time flicking rust colour paints at them using a toothbrush (as per a recent article in 'British Railway Modelling').  Whilst this didn't perhaps give the build up of colour I had hoped for, the effect is actually there, just very subtle.  A spray over with the Citadel 'Purity Spray' killed any shine and I actually think they do look like used, but not abandoned too long, bogies:

Just to prove that you do see this sort of thing lying around, I took this picture of a Severn-Lamb bogie frame in the engineering yard at Lightwater Valley last week (with permission):

Finally, a quick update on 'Kestrel' as the painting process draws to a close and the glazier is on stand-by....

I've added a little dry-brushing in places to overcome the slightly less than satisfactory after-effects of the varnish spray.  I think I'll get away with it....

Bogies!

A few weeks ago I was passed a quantity of Avalon Line coach bogies from a member of the NGRM Online forum and wondering what to do with them, I decided to have a play and see if I could produce 'spare' bogies that could sit in/outside a workshop or in a miniature railway yard.  Ironically these bogies are actually to my design, although I had only intended them as a demonstration piece they were deemed good enough to cast.  They aren't perfect by any means, but they do the job...

I created two bogies with wheels and two without, where I cut out each axlebox out with a razor saw and files, which was, er, fun....  Despite the apparent expense, I've used Parkside wheels as the metal axles look a lot more like the real thing than ones with 'PECO N' written on them.  No actual cost as they were in the spares box.  Two of the bogies were given a representation of a brake cylinder.  Each bogie has a locating pin on top made from Knightwing or Dapol oddments.

Work on 'Kestrel' was hit by a slight painting setback yesterday, when my comments I made elsewhere about using Citadel aerosol varnish came back to haunt me (basically I sprayed in too humid an atmosphere and got little white marks on parts of the paintwork).  Whilst that is well on the way to being resolved, coupled with a down-heartening soldering session yesterday became a bit of a grim day.

So this morning I decided on a 'quick win' to boost morale.  The bogie frames and some parts destined as a load for the SFR Hudson framed wagon were primed a few days ago so I decided to have a quick session with the acrylics and add some colour to them:

The eagle eyed may notice that I have moved the brake cylinders, this was based on a little personal observation at the Sherwood Forest Railway.  These have been given a coat of Citadel varnish with no ill effect, it was much warmer in the workshop which seems to have done the trick.... They need some light weathering before use but are well on the way.  Of course what I haven't remembered to do is prepare and paint the wheelsets!

Colin