Tuesday 29th March

Time for the rust base coat. I’ll use Humbrol enamels for this. It will sit on top of the etch primer and hopefully adhere well enough not to come off when the top coat is scrubbed to remove the weathering salt. The real test, as always with brass, is whether the primer sticks to the brass - it’s going to be a mess if it doesn’t. I’ll start with a dark brown, old rust, pretty much all over, but with some density variation. A lighter red brown on top of that in patches. And finish with a few areas of pale yellowy new rust. I have to say the pale colour is probably too pale and yellow, a bit more orange would be better. It does look a bit like panzer ambush camouflage with the pale spots! Actually it is starting to look like a real 1/108, but the thing to remember is that this is just a base coat that shows through gaps in the top coat

This is built up on the inside too as a base for the interior weathering. One thing I’ve noticed on good colour photos of steel coal wagons is that there is often a noticeable ‘tide mark’ around the inside corresponding to the top of the coal load. I assume this is because coal, being mildly acidic when wet, corrodes the parts of the body in contact with it differently from the parts not usually covered by the load. I’ve attempted to create a basis for this; it’ll be more defined by the proper weathering later.

24 hours drying - or probably until next weekend, and another round of airbrush cleaning.

Looking ahead to the top coat, I’ve made up a small test panel for salt weathering. Base coated with a rusty Humbrol enamel, then water applied where I want the rust patches, sprinkled with rock salt (Himalayan Rock Salt - 'a naturally pink and tasty alternative to normal salt’ apparently) and left to dry.