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Grotbags - a PLV also available in green.

Buckjumper

Entry posted by Buckjumper

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Here is a broken record of the construction of a Slater's Southern PLV. Or is it a PMV? I was asked to paint it malachite, and although I don't want to start a bun fight, I'm sure it looked fine to whomever was drinking Elixir Végétal de la Grande-Chartreuse at Southern HQ at the time ;)

 

The Slater's kit is rather lovely, and the parts fit together exceptionally well. The instructions cover an awful lot of variations, some of which aren't catered for in the kit, so I went through it with a malechite green highlighter to ensure I didn't miss anything for an example from the 1931 batch I'd chosen to emulate.

 

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I deviated from the instructions by fitting the roof early on; a gappy ill-fitting roof is a particular bête noire of mine, and I much prefer to secure and seal them once the sides and ends are together, and it gives the added advantage of quickly making a very stable structure. At this stage I also took the liberty of providing cross-body bracing to mitigate against any potential bowing of the sides due to solvent fumes or stresses in the plastic relieving themselves over time.

 

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The multitude of brass castings cleaned up beautifuly and were superglued in place.

 

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Later in life many PLV/PMVs had the tops of the planked ends covered with steel sheet which I made from 10thou plasticard.

 

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I airbrushed the sides and ends green, but then realised the ends were meant to be black...

 

The roof was painted a dirty grey and the underframe constructed according to the instructions, though I added some extra pipework and safety loops as these are very apparent at eye-level viewing and are very much a part of the overall appeal of the van. Before securing the body to the underframe I glazed the windows and added some safety bars from plastic strip. With the underframe secure I weighted the van with a matrix of fluid lead and pva glued between the cross members. With plenty of expansion room the lead/pva mix won't cause the same disasterous results seen when packed into loco boilers.

 

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Transfers were a pickle. Some of those in the kit were shaded gilt for the olive green period and some were sunshine yellow for malachite, but after discussing things with Graham Muz, it seems neither set completely covered either period so I made up the shortfall from Fox which needed subtle trimming to fit.

 

NPCS never seems to have been taken care of to any great degree, not even in pre-Grouping times, and photographic evidence seems to indicate that these parcels vans wern't cleaned from one repaint to the next, so their typical appearance was various shades of grot, the paint only showing through where jackets and hands of those loading the vans have rubbed against it. The van was finished off with some white indian ink scrawls applied with a nib and knocked back with a further haze of grime and some lovely screw couplings from Pat Legg at CPL.

 

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Edited for finger trouble on the android.

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Mikkel
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Austere but with loads of character. That underframe does stand out, very appealing. I like the chalk marks, subtle and "random" in just the right way.

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Buckjumper

Thanks Mikkel. I'd wanted to build one of these for ages, so it was nice to have the opportunity to do so.

 

Incidentally, the marked difference in quality between the construction and finished photos is because the former are happy snaps taken on my phone and the latter by the DSLR.

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-missy-

The finish of that wagon is absolutely brilliant, you can hardly tell the thing was Green to start with. Its so easy to overdo weathering, especially heavy weathering but you have got that spot on, I would be very proud if I did anything like that.

 

Welcome back too Buckjumper.

 

Missy :)

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Buckjumper

Thanks Missy.

 

The secret is simple; don't weather it in one hit. The real thing was weathered by degrees - it accumulated grime, some of which was washed off in the rain, then more was added and so on. So, lots of thin coats of your favourite weathering brew each wiped off with moistened cotton buds before the next is applied until the desired patina is built up - this works for all degrees of weathering from almost ex-Works to wheezing on last legs.

 

The part which takes the longest, but is one of my favourite modelling tasks as it brings it all to life is applying all the highlights and shadows - the usual brew with an extra dollop of light grey or black respectively, drybrushed onto every raised or angled surface - that can take hours to get right, and is very easy to overdo. Something soothing on iTunes and something soothing in a glass works wonders. For me that's a bit of prog and JD on the rocks. It's a hard life being a modeller...

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richbrummitt

Perfect amount of yuck. I found it funny that someone has managed to chalk a window and just love the self made porthole in the nearest window (final picture). So much character.

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Buckjumper

Thanks! I found a photo of a PMV with a chalked window which I thought was fantastic and just had to be replicated. I guess the grot must have been sun-baked on to allow the chalk to take.

 

 

With you there Dave - I'm partial a broad range from classic to neo :)

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