St James's Station

ianvolvo46 wrote:

Yes I remember it took hours to do. But I was painting a hundred or more figures as well so the carrots made for a nice break.

 

Two days of wiring up lights. I am ready for something else now, but first here are some progress pics.
I used the circular saw to cut shallow grooves into the baseboards to run the wiring underneath the houses.The lights that are sitting up are supported by cotton bud sticks.

 

The buildings that are glowing a little haven't had the insides painted with black acrylic yet.I will try and do that tomorrow morning before I go back to work for the next three days.All the houses have bulbs inside and the next step after the painting will be to cut out some matt board and make a floor to divide the two levels that will help to divide the light from upstairs and downstairs.

 

And I bought 8 of these tankers from Hattons last week.The idea is to paint them matt black and weather them up a treat so they blend in with the other 10 oil tankers I have.I managed to get my 9F to pull a rake of 35 last night. It did look great I must say.

 

Gary wrote:

Those red ones will look even better in an hour or so once they are black!

 

I was able to paint the 8 red tankers a nice Matt black today. I had to work this afternoon and don't get home till Sunday night so will weather them on Monday. I did take photos but can't upload them until Monday either. So just take my word for it that they look much better and not so toylike anymore.
I've some nice Railmatch Oily Grime to put on them as well as the normal light dusting of airbrushed browns and greys etc.

 

Thanks Toto.
It's one of those jobs that I have been putting off and putting off.
Once I got myself a good method it went pretty quickly and without any real hassles. I am still to make up a small panel with switches so that I can switch the block sections of lights on and off. I have a few more buildings to light, some street lights to add and some some platform lamps to install but basically the layout is lit.
I might even try and install some LEDs into the signals next week and then they will be lit and look the part. I will probably use nano LEDs from DCC Con as they are only 2mm x 1mm and just about disappear yet provide an incredible amount of light.q

I'm expecting to get my shipment of Zimo Sound decoders and speakers from Digitrains next week, so once they arrive I will be busy fitting the locos with those.

 

Toto wrote:

Hey that's a great idea. I will have to some investigating into that one. Its probably something that an Arduino or Rasberry PI could do. I will be wiring up the switches this week with some red bezel mounted LEDs I bought at the local JAYCAR Electrical supplier.I will need to some research about the Arduino or Rasberry PI and see what I can or can't do with it.[sub][/sub][sup][/sup]

 

So as I posted last week I airbrushed the 8 Hornby 20 Ton tankers in a lovely shade of Matt Black.I had the day at home today and finished the job off with some weathering.
Of course once I started I figured it would be easy to keep going with a few other wagons at the same time. In all I weathered about 18 20 Ton tankers, 3 smaller tankers, 4 brake vans, the 75 ton crane and it's engineers wagons, the 0-6-0 Austerity Loco and the 9F.
I used a mix of Railmatch Acrylic Sleeper Grime, Frame Dirt and the two colours mixed together. I'm pretty happy with the results and as the photos show they look a hell of a lot better than the red that they started out as. I must give much credit to my amazing little Iwata CR airbrush. It sprays so nicely without spitting or spattering at all. It is an absolute joy to use and so easy to clean.
The starting Point.

A quick comparison photo showing the result after painting.

Wagons done and ready to be weathered.

 

The end result after 2 mistings of Railmatch Frame Dirt and Sleeper Grime.



Time to take a break. Think I'll pick out some bricks on the 1:1 scale garage I'm painting.

A heavily weathered Brake Van for the oil train. This is the Hornby one from The Thomas range.


This photo shows just how heavily weathered it really is.

 

And while I've got the Airbrush loaded up......

 

And the crane and some small tankers and private owner 7 plank coal wagons.
The 7 planks were Hamleys Christmas wagons, I bought them 9 years ago. They started life as horrible yellow things. Now they look a right treat.






These started life this morning as pristine wagons. They just looked out of place on the layout. I really feel the weathering brings them back in time and gives them a nice used look.


I've sprayed just enough Frame Dirt on to take the shine off the wagon. I want to give it the "I'm new but I haven't been completely neglected yet" look.