Milestones

It's a "big" birthday today, one of those with a zero at the end.... the one where tradition has it life begins!

It also marks a year since my 009 project started in earnest, with the "well directed" gift of the Peco V-skips, and the purchase the previous day of a Wills 'Station Garage' kit at the Newark exhibition. I gave myself a year to get the project to a satisfactory point and that point has now been reached.

Ironically, those Peco V-skips are still box fresh whilst the Wills garage kit was transformed into the buildings seen above. The focus is now on getting the motive power and rolling stock up the scratch to match the scenic work, and hereby hangs my current dilemma...

In a fit of temptation I bought a MiniTrains Bagnall wing tank at a favourable price and whilst a beautiful runner it didn't really fit my intention of the skips being pulled by an authentic looking internal combustion locomotive! That need may well be met a 3D printed Ruston destined for a Tomytec drive unit. Experimentation shows it is (just) possible to cram enough weight in there to make it run well and a degree of subterfuge employed to hide the lack of cab interior detail and motor occupying part of the space.

This is a milestone model in itself as it is my first 3D printed item as I have always been very cautious about this technique until now. So far I'm impressed and there was something for a future O9 model in the package too...

Colin

Weathered Wood

What follows uses a 4mm scale building for my 009 project but as with many things, the technique is transferable to larger scales so I have shared it here. Indeed, I actually first experimented with colour washes on some 7mm scale 'Ratty' fencing earlier in the year to get an idea of how the technique might work.

The base layer is Halfords grey primer, applied earlier in the year, progress being delayed by scenic work taking priority. The first stage was to apply an overall wash of Vallejo 'Black Grey' over all of the structure, woodwork, corrugated iron and the board and batten roofing. The paint was mixed about 50/50 with Vallejo matt medium before thinning with water. Once dry this was followed with a wash in a mid-brown colour (a hoarded pre-made product from the defunct Penhaven range) over the wooded walls and corrugated iron. A third wash was made using Citadel 'Baneblade Brown' (a bare wood sort of shade) and a spot of Vallejo 'Green Brown', again with matt medium before dilution, was applied over the walls. Lastly a diluted mix of rusty red acrylic was applied over the corrugated iron areas.

You may wonder why I chose to use washes to build up the colour rather than just paint a solid green/grey over the woodwork. My feeling is that this method actually gives more control over the colour and seems to give more colour depth without clogging the detail.

The next step (two days later) was another wash of Vallejo black grey concentrated into the joins in the timber and dabbed off in other areas. This was followed by the beginning of dry-brushing, using a mix of Vallejo 'Green Grey' and 'Light Grey' over the woodwork. I then added some suitable rusty dry-brushing to the corrugated iron areas.

The next day another wash was created, a blend of Citadel 'Baneblade Brown' and Vallejo 'Green Grey', plus matt medium, used to add some damper looking patches along the bottom of the wooden walls. Next a slightly thicker mix of 'Baneblade Brown' and Vellejo 'London Grey' was washed over the board and batten roof of the office building. The remnants of both washes were then combined and the inside of the workshop given a coat to hide the primer grey.

Work then concentrated on the corrugated iron. I added a darker rust colour to the corrugated areas but not as a consistent coat. Once this was dried I added various rust tones using weathering powders, plus some colouring towards the back of the roof to represent the fact that is sits under the trees.

As I suspect this is the last post before the big day - a very Merry Christmas to all O9 Modeller readers.

Colin

Hedging your bets

In the ethos of scenic modelling being applicable in all scales I felt I ought to elaborate on the scene presented recently in black and white.

The hedgerow itself is strips of rubberised horsehair teased out and used with the strands vertically. This was then treated a la Gordon Gravett - sprayed with matt brown and grey primer aerosols. Once dry the usual methodology followed of hairspray and foliage fibre mat. To add to the colour variation and the effect of being different bushes three colours were used from the Skale Scenics, Woodland Scenics and Green Scene ranges. This was followed by more hairspray and additional scatter.

After planting the bottom edge looked rather too straight so I added some small sprigs of sea moss to break up the edge and provide some more variety. I must get some concrete paint on that culvert outlet...

The overall view now of the project now looks like this. The eagle eyed will spot an extra tree to the rear left, a sea moss based silver birch (which was an experiment with a strengthened and textured trunk) has taken root at the back of the layout.

Another look at that view up the lane... there will be a short length of fence on the right hand side of the lane between the growths. I wonder if I will be able to pose O9 stock here for photography to and really fool the eye?

Colin

Forest in a box

Having teased you with a black and white glimpse of my 009 project the other day made me realise that I haven't covered a couple of scenic aspects that appear in that picture, so this is the first of two posts to rectify that omission.

Five sea moss trees were created to go across the centre of the layout. This was relatively quick process, these are 'background' trees after all. The stems were firstly soaked in warm water to re-shape any bent and squashed bits and then left to dry out. Once dry they were reduced to the desired height, well actually they were a bit bigger than planned, but with sea moss that just means lopping off the lower branches making ready made bushes in the process... With hindsight i would have painted the stems with a mix of Halfords matt brown and grey primer aerosols). After that it's just ultra hold hairspray and foliage.

The five new trees and their associated growths form an effective break across the centre of the layout, almost hiding the bridge behind the workshop building. From another view point it can be seen that this is partially achieved by having some growths coming out of the join between the rock face and bridge abutment behind the shed, effectively screening the abutment from view.

From the other side the screening is equally effective, you can hardly see the buildings on the other side. I have added all sorts of extra growths along the path and around the bridge from the stash of smaller branches I had treated alongside the trees.

More soon...

Colin

Black and White

I've been making steady progress on my 009 project of late so won't bore you too much with detail about the processes, but did feel it worth sharing this view that I took and then played about with...

Colin

Of Muck and Raspberries

I thought that it might be useful to show the basic ground cover method that I have now started to use on my 009 project. This basic layer is my gunk mix (emulsion paint/PVA and powdered filler) painted on, and a blend of Woodland Scenics Fine Turf and very fine sand sieved over it whilst wet.

There are few bald patches, some of these are intentional as part of the effect that I'm after and will be blended in to the end result. Others will be hidden under the next layer and mainly occur around the edges as the mix seems to dry quicker there.  The large gap at the top is where a building and scenic feature will be positioned.

Jobs like this take advantage of short windows of opportunity. The previous morning a task I undertook was to add some raspberry bushes along the lane. The producer is Tasma Products and the range can be found here (but trade-only). These went into holes drilled in the scenery, glued with PVA. I did give the bushes a blast of hairspray before sticking them in as I feared loosing the berries and leaves!

I have used 6 out of the 12 in the pack and I think that might be enough, there is a group of three as seen above, plus one on the right of the shot. The other two can be seen in the shot below, previously rejected until I played about with the photo editing software on my phone! I think that they are a good product, if a little pricey, but I couldn't easily make that myself very quickly so that's my excuse. Maybe I can use some of the unused examples on an O9 project in the future?

Colin

Touching in my Roots

When I bedded in the taller of the trees on the 009 project (Hornby describe this one as a Sycamore). I thought it might be useful to take some pictures on my phone as I did.

Here is the tree as glued in with Gorilla PVA before I started to blend it in.

The 'gunk' mix, it lives in an old tester pot that formed it's basis some time ago (this mix is towards the end if it's life despite a recent revival). Application will be by dental tool.

Applying the mix and getting some shape to the top of the roots.

Applying acrylic paint, whilst the plaster mix was still wet underneath.

That's basically it - the colour I mixed is not that close a mix to the Hornby colour and I may need to touch in some visible bits of the original colour at the top of the tree to blend it all together.

Colin