Too Hot!

The weather has been great but it’s not good for spraying paint. Nevertheless, a little bit of progress has been made and while it’s been a few days since my last entry, the coaches are progressing well!

And on Friday, he said ‘Let there be paint’ and there was paint…

Well I’m no expert but here goes…

Go to the Breakdown Train saga (in the Categories section) to see how some grey coaches get lighter and how a green coach changes it’s colour.

 

How about a little Jig

My coach building saga continues with news of the handrails being added.

Keep reading as I’m soon going to get the big saw out!

Progress on the Re-Railing Coaches

The Re-Railing coach feature has been updated with some more progress pictures.

Follow the link below to get to the page.

https://princesstreetgoodsyard.wordpress.com/the-re-railing-and-breakdown-train/

Advertisement

And now for…

…something a little different.

I’ve always loved departmental stock and the huge range of coaches and wagons etc you can see in a myriad of different liveries. For quite a long time, I have been considering how to put something together such as a breakdown train. The base coaches that would be the basis of the conversion were the stumbling point as this is where the main cost appears to be.

I don’t have the means to buy Heljan coaches only then to hack them up so I turned to the old Lima models. These have some laughable bogies and other flawed areas, however there is quite a market in Mk 1 coach detailing parts.

SO, I have obtained a few old Lima coaches and a big bag of parts which currently includes replacement bogies, couplings, buffers, T handles and torpedo vents. Wire hand rails will also be included replacing the moulded ones.

I have already started to sand off the old moulded detail in readiness for some further cutting and other areas which will be filled.

The first coach I have started to work on will hopefully look like this…

Come back at some point soon as I will keep updating my progress.

The Steamies get weathered!

I had a lovely few hours with Kelvin and was able to take over my Heljan Mk1 Buffet coach as well as a Dapol Jinty and Terrier both in late BR livery.

Kelvin has already weathered my other coaches and despite learning his methods by observing him, I declined the opportunity to weather this coach with him watching and supervising. I’m not good at being watched when I’m learning!

It’s truly amazing to watch a lot of plastic pieces come alive and look more like a real coach as the weathering is applied. It’s no quick fix but the techniques really make a difference.

I decided that I would like my two small steam engines to look like they had been in service for quite a long time so the Terrier had a medium weathering finish and the Jinty got close to heavy weathering.

These look absolutely amazing now and the little touches make all the difference such as the dry brushing to represent the salts that come out of the water and the gloss varnish around the water tank caps to make it look like water spillages.

The Terrier back home.

 

The Jinty back home