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....