As I stated in my last entry, quite a while ago! these wagons needed a bit of work to bring them up to scratch, and re- transfering to show a few more of the multitude of small printed detail that do adorn the prototype.

This shows the two wagons ive done so far one is a Tiphook branded KIA,the other, a IHA, which adds a litte variety as these are seen running mixed in with the KIA's and the various other steel coil carriers, the wagons are on the dirty side of weathering, based on photos this is how they seem to appear. This pic from martyn reads excellent site show the general level of grime they can attain and makes me think I could've gone a bit further.

After the transfers were applied which i am very pleased with their quality, which was great fun incidently!, white lettering on light blue background = "where the @%&£ are they! ". I did throw in the towel with 1 or 2 of the smaller details which is evident when looking at the prototype pics but i think i've acheived what i set out to.

The transfers were sealed and then a heavily thinned down coat of white was sprayed with the airbrush, to give the paint a more faded look, this is not very noticeable under all the other grime but i wanted to tone the blue down before applying the grime layer. This was a mix of railmatch acrylics, roof dirt and frame dirt heavily thinnned, was applied. This was applied by brush and wiped off again with a cosmetic sponge to get a thin, overall layer of brown.

Following this and once the paint had dried, carr's weathering powders were brushed over and again removed with a cosmetic sponge to get the desired effect, This is the kind of weathering i enjoy and i was able to fairly go to town on these wagons!

I did weather the IHA slightly less.

I've still got a few sets of the transfers, which are available from scale model transfers, so i will do a few more KIA's 1 is currently just in need of buffers and the weathering process. Now I need to turn my attention back to the JMA's where the bogies are slowly progressing, more cutting and soldering of bits of brass required, inching ever closer to completion!

Chris