With the second of my Cambrian Kits Sturgeon A wagons, I sprayed an overall grey undercoat first, then sprayed semi-matt black all over (from automotive touch up spray cans). The black gives a good starting point, but is much too black for a well-used and weathered wagon, so the next thing is to start brush paitin some greys on. These colours don't have to be done neatly as the effect will be built up gradually with layers of paint and effects. The first grey I have used is Humbrol #66 (olive drab) which is an excellent weathered black colour. I have chosen to do only the wooden planking on the doors at this point, but there will be more applied to the underframes and bogies as well.

The floor is also done, using a light earth colour initially, but that also will be darkened and mixed with other effects.

Once I have the basic colours in place, some dry-brushing and weathering powders will also play a part in it.

Kevin: don't be afraid to try painting with a number of different techniques and even different types of materials and textures. If it goes wrong (i.e. you don't like the effect), start again. If your coats of paint are reasonably thin and smoothly applied, just paint over it all with a suitable base colour and start from there. If the paint is too roughly applied, use a suitable paint stripper, then start at square one again.

Cambrian Kits Sturgeon A Painting Progress - 1 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Cambrian Kits Sturgeon A Painting Progress - 2 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


Note that the photos show the wagon in the very early stages of finishing, so the edges are quite crudely done at this point.

The photos also showed me that one of the door bumpers has dropped off, so I'll have to find a spare and glue it in place.

Cheers Jeff  Very good as usual, I must get off my fat armchair more often, and pull out my finger. Best wishes. Kevin

For Kevin: further stages in painting and weathering the Sturgeon A wagon. I have dry brushed a couple of different shades of grey, applying slightly heavier effects on some individual wooden planks, then overpainted all the "metal" parts of the wagon with some grimy black, thinned slightly. After that, a wash of dark brown was applied to all of the wagon's "metal" parts, and some of the individual planks, plus the floor of the wagon. The brown wash appears glossy in the photos because it is still wet!

That's the stage it is at now, but there is more work to do, including brushing some weathering powders of various browns and blacks in. The idea is to simulate a well-used wagon, based on some photos of the real ones, where most of the woodwork is distinctly grey in colour, although the whole wagon was originally black. Later liveries include olive green and engineer's 'Dutch' livery (grey and yellow).

Cambrian Kits Sturgeon A Painting Progress - 3 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Cambrian Kits Sturgeon A Painting Progress - 4 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


For both of my Sturgeon A wagons, I made up some 'old' rail loads. The rails were sprayed with red oxide undercoat then partly overpainted with darker 'rust' colours - it doesn't matter if the rails change colour over their length, it adds to the effect. The rails were glued to some strips of plastic card, representing wooden battens. These were painted a dark brown colour, but they are barely visible most of the time anyway. The photo shows the rail load before I had cleaned up some sheets of surplus glue.

Cambrian Kits Sturgeon A Rail Load cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Hi Jeff.  Thank you. Very good indeed, i’m Sure that i’ll get around to it one day. In the meantime keep up the good work.   Kevin

That weathering turned out nicely, very well done

Thanks for the compliments, ZTS.

I am still working on the paint and weathering. A brush-over with some mid-earth coloured then some dirty black powders has toned things down a bit, although I think the blacks on the wagon are a little too bold, still, and need to be faded down a spot more. I have set it up in a short train with the previously done Sturgeon A for comparison.

Cambrian Kits Sturgeon A Painting Progress - 5 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Cambrian Kits Sturgeon A Painting Progress - 6 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Hi Jeff.    Now that you have nearly completed the “ Sturgeon “ , are there anymore Sea Creature wagons that you have to do? ie the Whale Walrus, Mermaid etc.
Best wishes. Kevin

[user=1801]Passed Driver[/user] wrote:

Hi Jeff.    Now that you have nearly completed the “ Sturgeon “ , are there anymore Sea Creature wagons that you have to do? ie the Whale Walrus, Mermaid etc.
Best wishes. Kevin

 
I have a predecessor for the Seacow/Sealion types, a Southern Railway 47 ton ballast hopper still under construction. It's not an easy kit to build, so it is sort of on hold for now! I don't think these received a fishy name, but they probably should have.

The ballast brake in the photos is a Cambrian Kit converted from an SECR 'dance hall' brake van (Cambrian provide the extra bits and instructions in the kit).

In the past, I built a shark ballast plough brake van, and a grampus wagon (both Parkside kits).

I think the rest of the 'fish-kind' wagons I own are ready to run examples: sealions and seacows from Lima, Bachmann and Hornby, dogfish from Heljan, and more sharks from Hornby, plus Hornby's rudd and tope wagons.

Of course, I have also built a few other animal types too: GWR minks A & D, an iron mink (rebuilt and tarted up from a Ratio kit I built many years ago) and the more recent beetle.

I suppose I could consider a salmon rail wagon …

After a long pause, I have done a little more work on the Bratchell class 455/9 unit, having received a message from Adam of Electra Railway Graphics that he is nearly finished with the South West Trains vinyls for the unit. I have long been putting off painting the window frames, but recently bought a Sharpie permanent marker pen in silver with a view to trying it out on the frames. So far, I think it has been very successful: marking out the raised frames took me around 45 minutes to do the lot, and the paint/ink medium seems to dry quickly and can stand a bit of handling.


Painting the Window Frames - 1 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Hi Jeff.  Very good work .  â€œ After a long pause “ you said, I think that I can “ Top Trump “ in long pauses, I start with the usual dreams of building a railway empire, then nothing. Best wishes. Kevin

Don't worry, Kevin. Some of my projects have had much longer pauses than this one. At least one has been on hold for over 30 years!

Anyway, I have inserted the windows in the first coach, a TSO, and no problems have shown up at all. As always, I have used Krystal Klear as the glue for the windows.


Fitting the Windows - 2 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


​Fitting the Windows - 1 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Hi Jeff.  Thank you. I am reconsidering my Triang conversion project , to run with my 64xx, as it has hardly been out of the box since I fitted the Decoder.    Best wishes. Kevin

More progress on the 455/9, with all windows now fitted.

The front end painting is still very rough, and can't really be completed properly until the vinyls arrive and I can match the colours to the vinyls.


Fitting the Windows - 5 cropped by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr


Fitting the Windows - 4 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr

Hi Jeff. Thank you.  There was a “Slam Doot Train “ Question that I meant to ask, “ have you modelled Trains with part open “ Drop Light Windows” ?    Keep up the good work.  Best wishes. Kevin

Hi Kevin, I have done so in the past, but that tends to let dust into the insides of the coaches after a while, so I tend not to do that nowadays.

Something's fishy about those wagons

[user=1916]ZeldaTheSwordsman[/user] wrote:

Something's fishy about those wagons

 Yes, all those 'fish-kind' names used for telegraphic codes might have something to do with it! ;)

I also have shark, rudd, tope, seacow and sealion types in the stock drawers.

Not to mention the rest of the menagerie, with a beetle, some minks and a toad!

   

But no scorpions?

SRman wrote:

Hi Kevin, I have done so in the past, but that tends to let dust into the insides of the coaches after a while, so I tend not to do that nowadays.

 Hi Jeff.  Thank you for your reply. I didn’t mean removing the window , but just carefully painting.a silver colour to represent  the top of the window.  Best wishes. Kevin

[user=1801]Passed Driver[/user] wrote:

Hi Jeff.  Thank you for your reply. I didn’t mean removing the window , but just carefully painting.a silver colour to represent  the top of the window.  Best wishes. Kevin

 
I have done that too, Kevin, but it isn't always convenient on some models - it depends on their construction.

I had to replace a missing window once on a Hornby 08 shunter bought cheaply off eBay because of that and a damaged handrail: I simply cut some clear plastic to fit half the window and painted the silver top bar before gluing it in.