Pendon Museum Weathering Courses

[56303]

Like most modellers, the art of weathering your expensive locos and rolling stock can be a bit daunting and with a whole range of different equipment and techniques available, I didn’t know where to start.

 

Therefore, I decided to take the plunge and sign up for a couple of the 1 day weathering courses held at Pendon Museum - Weathering With An Airbrush .and Weathering Without An Airbrush (link below to the website).

 

https://www.pendonmuseum.com/news/post.php?s=2017-01-29-modelling-workshops-for-adults

 

Last weekend, I attended the 2 courses with some apprehension and hoped that I wouldn’t come away with some seriously messed up wagons I’d taken with me !

 

Both of the courses were led by Mick Bonwick who was friendly, knowledgeable and incredibly patient with any issues/questions that a course participant had (myself included !).

 

I found both of the courses were excellent, well run, very informative and have given me the confidence now to attempt some further weathering of my stock – well some wagons anyway, locos can wait for a bit longer until I’m more confident !

 

At the moment, I will continue to try weathering without an airbrush but only because of the cost of investing in some airbrush equipment at the moment.

 

Day 1 (Weathering With An Airbrush)

The airbrush course includes providing the airbrushing equipment, spray booths and several enamel/acrylic weathering materials which Mick took time going through and explaining including cleaning and maintaining the airbrush.  This information was invaluable for a complete novice like me who hadn’t used an airbrush before.

There was plenty of opportunity to use the equipment and techniques that Mick taught us to produce a weathered wagon.

 

Day 2 (Weathering Without An Airbrush)

So as the course title suggests, this was a weathering course using washes/pigments/powders to start to produce a weathered wagon.

Again, several enamel/acrylic weathering materials are provided which Mick went through and explained before showing some of the different techniques he uses.

Plenty of time again to use the materials and techniques demonstrated by Mick on your chosen item (IOA wagons in my case).

 

As a bonus, you get admission to the Pendon Museum which allows you to freely look around all the information and layouts on show during the numerous coffee breaks and lunch that we had.

 

So if you’re a complete novice like me, I would recommend giving these courses a go !

 

 

[colin penfold]

My wife has booked me on these in November and your experience has made me look forward more. Mick helped Andy York with the photography course and I found him to be very personable then.

 

Thanks for the reassurance.

 

I take it you supplied your own wagons?

[The Fatadder]

I was torn between this and the scenery course as my birthday present from my wife, in the end choosing to go on the scenery course on November 4th (scenery being more important for the layout than weathering this year)

That said once the layout is more complete I plan on going back to do the weathering courses, and reading your experience reinforces that

Edited October 3, 2017 by The Fatadder

[56303]

My wife has booked me on these in November and your experience has made me look forward more. Mick helped Andy York with the photography course and I found him to be very personable then.

 

Thanks for the reassurance.

 

I take it you supplied your own wagons?

 

Hi Colin,

Yes, you're encouraged to take some of your own stock to try the techniques but Mick also had a supply of Hornby wagons you could purchase on the day for £5 each if you prefer not to try with one of your own.

I'd never used an airbrush before so I wasn't brave enough to try one of my wagons for the airbrush weathering so I purchased one of Micks wagons instead to try out with the airbrush.

However, I did use a couple of my Dapol MOA wagons on the second day to weather with some washes/powders which went ok but they're a bit rough n' ready shall we say but they're a work in progress project !

[56303]

I was torn between this and the scenery course as my birthday present from my wife, in the end choosing to go on the scenery course on November 4th (scenery being more important for the layout than weathering this year)

That said once the layout is more complete I plan on going back to do the weathering courses, and reading your experience reinforces that

 

I'm also booked on the scenery course on November 4th so it will be good to meet a fellow RMWeb member !

 

I think Mick is also running the scenery course as well so if the weathering courses are anything to go by, it should be another excellent informative course (Mick - no pressure then ! ) )

[chrisd]

Just back from a weekend spent at Pendon on Mick’s weathering courses. Highly recommended. I went as a relative novice with little airbrushing experience. The course has given me a lot of confidence to tackle what I thought was going to be a daunting task. Quite looking forward to getting everything dirty now! If you can book one of these courses, go for it! Even better if you can book the two days together. Gives you a great insight into the different materials and techniques available and how you can combine them all to give, IMHO, pretty good results in a short time.

 

Thanks Mick and the rest of the Pendon team.

[Liddy]

I have to echo my fellow modellers, the 'Weathering without an airbrush" course yesterday was exellent!

Mick Bonwick very thoroughly described the mechanics of the materials and techniques so that we fully understood what we were doing and his advice is exemplary. I had a brilliant day, learnt lots, got coaching and advice, tried new techniques and loved every minute.

I will certainly be going again to learn some more.

 

Not finished but certainly started;

Edited July 15, 2019 by Liddy
Spelling

[Bill Eaton]

Having been on all three of the weathering courses ( with and without an airbrush and advanced) I too can vouch for the excellence of all of them. I have also been on the DCC sound and the detailing the scene courses (the latter earlier today) which are equally excellent and I am now looking forward to the figure painting course I have booked for April 2020.