Buckjumper's Blog

Very nice indeed.  Is that the plain "carriage brown" livery? This tends to be a bit under-represented in model form. Everyone thinks LNER = teak. I've done some 2mm coaches in plain brown but they need toning down & weathering.

 

Mark

They look very good. The glass does really make a difference.

 

Pleased that the house and workshop are being sorted out for you.

Glad to hear of more progress on the house. I hope you are not sloshing that MEK around in the dark! :-)

 

That compo is very attractive indeed. The photos illustrate just how much weathering can do, especially with your expertise. Ok so there's more light in the second photo, but it's still the weathering that makes it really stand out and gives it character.

 

It must be hard to have to part with all these lovely models when they go back to the owners!

Very nice indeed.  Is that the plain "carriage brown" livery? This tends to be a bit under-represented in model form. Everyone thinks LNER = teak. I've done some 2mm coaches in plain brown but they need toning down & weathering.

 

Mark

 

Thanks Mark. From 1924, Stratford turned out all ex-GE carriages which had been painted crimson from 1919 onwards in shades of brown ranging from chestnut to an almost ochre colour (the official LNER plain brown was on the spectrum somewhere) - the crimson having stained the wood irretrievably. Carriages which avoided the crimson were stripped and varnished.

 

The colour Danny originally painted the carriage was, as you can see, almost chocolate - but I've been able to knock it into a sort of rich chestnut shade with some transparent layers over the top, a bit of a buff-up and some false highlights and shadows.

 

I think it's changed from being fairly mundane to quite an attractive colour.

 

They look very good. The glass does really make a difference.

 

Pleased that the house and workshop are being sorted out for you.

 

Thanks Peter.Yes, the glass makes a great deal of difference, both in clarity and in removing the prismatic effect. I use canopy glue to fix it in place as is dries clear and after about 15-20 minutes any blobs are removed with a sharp cocktail stick.

 

Not long now and I'll be wielding the hot spanner and magic wand again

 

 

Glad to hear of more progress on the house. I hope you are not sloshing that MEK around in the dark! :-)

 

That compo is very attractive indeed. The photos illustrate just how much weathering can do, especially with your expertise. Ok so there's more light in the second photo, but it's still the weathering that makes it really stand out and gives it character.

 

It must be hard to have to part with all these lovely models when they go back to the owners!

 

No, no nocturnal modelling going on - once I get the juice hooked up though...

 

Yes I agree; the original photo I posted had too much green in it so I've removed it and compensated in Photoshop by lightening it up, reducing the green and blue and adding some red and a warm filter to try and give a closer comparison between the two.

 

The original was taken under an overcast winter sky and the finished thing under an autumn sun, so there's quite a big difference in light temperature, but I think there quite an interesting gulf between the fairly plain brown it came in and the rich chestnut on the finished model, so I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

 

To be honest it's not too hard letting them go, and get quite a rush from the reaction of the new owner when they see it for the first time. There's quite a psychological divide between models I build for others and those of my own - parting with those, even if they no longer fit in with my current plans, is much harder!

That dark brown colour is very hard to weather over, I find, because the more common weathering mixes tend to go beige, as the first photo shows.

 

Can you elaborate on what you've done to the panelling?  It looks like dark washes into the corners and a slightly glossy finishing coat?

 

Ta.

Sure. First of all I sprayed on some very thin gloss mist coats with a chestnut tint mixed up using enamels on the palette, tweaking the tint until I was happy.

 

A lot of people use black and leather (Humbrol 33 and 62) for the base weathering mix, adding gunmetal 53, satin brown 133 and a range of other colours as described in Martyn Welch's weathering bible. That's great, and it's perhaps my most dog-eared modelling book, but as you say, I find that mix is just too light - too beige (even for dusty underframes) so for a long time now I've used a simplified palette of black 33 and satin brown 133 for the majority of my base weathering mixes, keeping it on the dark side, and adding drops of leather or gunmetal etc in restrained quantities. Following conversations I've had with Martyn it turns out that he's done pretty much the same. This can be airbrushed or washed onto the coach sides and left to dry for 15-20 minutes before removing with cotton buds moistened with thinners.

 

This is all very well, and is the point where most people stop the weathering process but you're only halfway there as the effect is too flat and lifeless, so I spend a lot of time creating highlights and shadows by drybrushing a lighter and darker mix of the base colour over all the raised detail.