Like most modellers, the art of weathering your expensive locos and rolling stock can be a bit daunting and with a whole range of different equipment and techniques available, I didn’t know where to start.
Therefore, I decided to take the plunge and sign up for a couple of the 1 day weathering courses held at Pendon Museum - Weathering With An Airbrush .and Weathering Without An Airbrush (link below to the website).
https://www.pendonmuseum.com/news/post.php?s=2017-01-29-modelling-workshops-for-adults
Last weekend, I attended the 2 courses with some apprehension and hoped that I wouldn’t come away with some seriously messed up wagons I’d taken with me !
Both of the courses were led by Mick Bonwick who was friendly, knowledgeable and incredibly patient with any issues/questions that a course participant had (myself included !).
I found both of the courses were excellent, well run, very informative and have given me the confidence now to attempt some further weathering of my stock – well some wagons anyway, locos can wait for a bit longer until I’m more confident !
At the moment, I will continue to try weathering without an airbrush but only because of the cost of investing in some airbrush equipment at the moment.
Day 1 (Weathering With An Airbrush)
The airbrush course includes providing the airbrushing equipment, spray booths and several enamel/acrylic weathering materials which Mick took time going through and explaining including cleaning and maintaining the airbrush. This information was invaluable for a complete novice like me who hadn’t used an airbrush before.
There was plenty of opportunity to use the equipment and techniques that Mick taught us to produce a weathered wagon.
Day 2 (Weathering Without An Airbrush)
So as the course title suggests, this was a weathering course using washes/pigments/powders to start to produce a weathered wagon.
Again, several enamel/acrylic weathering materials are provided which Mick went through and explained before showing some of the different techniques he uses.
Plenty of time again to use the materials and techniques demonstrated by Mick on your chosen item (IOA wagons in my case).
As a bonus, you get admission to the Pendon Museum which allows you to freely look around all the information and layouts on show during the numerous coffee breaks and lunch that we had.
So if you’re a complete novice like me, I would recommend giving these courses a go !
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