Hydraulic Heaven

Looks good mate! The coal in the first two photos looks very true to scale. I also like the boulder size for the loco coal, it's good to have variety.

Best regards,

Jeremy

That looks a lot better. I agree with you about the painted ones.

As for the boulder size loco coal, have you tried a mix of Anthracite and Daw Mill to get the best of both worlds.

 

Jerry

First ones all good! I like the example in the middle of the photo of the larger stuff best but they probably look different in real life?

Looks good mate! The coal in the first two photos looks very true to scale. I also like the boulder size for the loco coal, it's good to have variety.

Thanks Jeremy. 

 

That looks a lot better. I agree with you about the painted ones.

As for the boulder size loco coal, have you tried a mix of Anthracite and Daw Mill to get the best of both worlds.

Cheers Jerry... another experiment on the offing then... or several because I could also vary the proportions...

 

I need some more wagons now.

Look perfect to me, the heaping is excellent and the grading works very well.

Thanks for sharing these experiments, they're very useful for us all to learn from.

 

One thing that occurred to me: Would the "sparkle" be visible if the viewing distance in your photos was scaled up to the real world? Eg if you look at the last shot, everything is matt (and rightly so, I think) while the coal is conspiciously not.

 

On that basis I'm wondering whether the two wagons on the left are perhaps more "right" than we might at first think?

 

Just a thought, I could well be wrong!

Look perfect to me, the heaping is excellent and the grading works very well.

Thanks.

First ones all good! I like the example in the middle of the photo of the larger stuff best but they probably look different in real life?

One thing that occurred to me: Would the "sparkle" be visible if the viewing distance in your photos was scaled up to the real world? Eg if you look at the last shot, everything is matt (and rightly so, I think) while the coal is conspiciously not.

 

On that basis I'm wondering whether the two wagons on the left are perhaps more "right" than we might at first think?

I've come to the conclusion that there is no 'right and wrong' here. The appearance of each load depends on the lighting conditions and my wagons need to work under a variety of lighting. They also look a bit different in real life to the way they look in these photos.

 

I'm convinced that the 'sparkle' does not scale down because the facets on 2mm scale lumps are too big, but the alternative is to kill the sparkle using some sort of coating. This is where we move away from science and into art because my completely subjective reaction to the duller loads is that they are not as good as the ones that sparkle. I think that this (and the uniformity of size) was the reason that I didn't like the BHE model coal.

 

Colour-wise, my initial reaction was that most of the loads are too black and that only the (uncoated) Anthracite approaches the bluish grey colour seen in prototype photos. The Daw Mill coated with a grey wash is also going in the right direction but I don't like the way that the wash collects in the crevices, plus it also loses some 'sparkle' (see the above comments about that).

 

So basically you pays your money and you takes your pick. I think I will not be applying any more paints or varnishes and will be going for Daw Mill or Anthracite for loco coal (or maybe a mix of the two). I will stick with all three to get variety in the house coal sized stuff.

 

Regards, Andy

Try a dry-brush instead of a wash?

Or Metalcote gunmetal dry brush?

Try a dry-brush instead of a wash?

Or Metalcote gunmetal dry brush?

Yes, dry brushing is something that I haven't tried (on this job at least). So looks like I'm not quite done experimenting just yet...

I agree the house coal loads look really good.

Although the loco coal loads look different when stood next to one another I think they all look OK,

and I can see that under different lighting conditions the most realistic would be difficult to choose.