Well the sun was shining for a bit at least this morning. Not that that makes any difference as started this projectet yesterday. I thought it was about time that I made some more wagon loads and page 59 of the new WDLR album gave me the inspiration. I am getting this in quickly to counter any possible questions - yes, they did have bails of hay a hundred years ago!

After a bit of hacking away at a piece of balsa out of one of those bargain bundles I had a bunch of suitably sized blocks and after attacking them with a pointy thing I had some passable bales;

Then followed some experiments in colouring them;

Just to prove that not everything I attempt works out I include these sorry examples;

At one point I seriously wondered if I should just use bite sized shredded wheat! In the end I found the natural colour to be the best base, just a quick coat of sanding sealer and then some washes of acrylic and then pastels on top gave a pretty good representation. To get things right I again used images summoned up from Google but was appalled by the lack of understanding of the difference between hay and straw!

My source picture has one wagon all open and then two covered with tarpaulins which was handy as I was able to disguise my colouring disasters! Forgot to say that each bale was tied with tread which in my best tradition is almost invisible but at least i (and you as well !), know it i there. The tarpaulins were made from tissues and PVA and then a coat of sanding sealer to make them lie flat. Paint was Vallejo acrylic with the shadows put in when everything was nice and wet but the highlights dry brushed when everything had dried out. The balsa bases were painted and anonymous black so they won't show the lack of bails inside the wagon and a bit of iron wire was included to make magnetic removal possible. So here we have some lovely loaded wagons;

And finally, on having a bit of a tidy up yesterday, I found a load of poppies and wire pickets I had made ages ago and said out loud 'where shall I put these to be safe?' - the truly brilliant wifely answer was of course - 'on the layout' so here are more poppies and barred wire;

The only wagon load I am really missing now are ammunition boxes but that is a problem for another day.