Jo's N gauge wagon works - building, painting and weathering

[Steadfast]

A cruel close up of what is the first sub assembly I can call finished. It's the lowest belt on the machine, with some kind of tamping equipment or similar. The hydraulic lines use black coated jewellery wire and were rather time consuming to add but are worthwhile I feel

Jo

Edited June 14, 2018 by Steadfast

[Steadfast]

A quick update to say there's been zero modelling of late due to the house move and me having no modelling kit with me, but I should be having a day of modelling at the parents house tomorrow. I plan to get a few things ready to be worked on at The N Gauge Show at Leamington, where I'll be on the DEMU stand on the Saturday. Plan is to be working on a Loadhaul Salmon and buffer fitting a pair of HTAs.

I'll have the MOBC with me too, but it'll be a long way from finished. Do drop by and say hello if you want a closer look!

 

Jo

Edited August 28, 2018 by Steadfast

[Steadfast]

Right, let's get things back on track! First, a brief post showing some of the previous wagons that have featured on the thread, along with a couple of more recent ones that have been on the layout thread. The wagons are all where they belong, on the layout being shunted! Similar pics have admittedly also appeared on the layout thread here https://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/72130-newport-maesglas-n-gauge-wagon-repair-depot-formerly-stuarts-lane/&do=findComment&comment=3448610 where there is also a brief write up of some of the recent additions. Both the RMC hopper and the South Wales slab modified BAA are particular favourites of mine

Next up, I'll do an update on the big yellow ballast cleaner...it's definitely moved forward,

 

Jo

[Steadfast]

On to the big update. The ballast cleaner. All of a sudden it's gone from a tub of bits towards looking like it's meant to!

Out came the yellow paint, the shade varies, I attempted to copy the real thing's variations in fading and shading, but it did end up a bit more freelance. Still, it's varied! Placed together, a test of ride height. It looks a bit low in the picture, but it lines up nicely in reality.

Next stage was to draw up the decals. A mix of white paper and clear paper, all drawn in Photoshop. It's a mix of scratch drawn details and edited elements from photos. All 4 Plasser logos are faded to different extents, as per each one on the real machine. Lots of time went into drawing these up from scratch.

Once decalled up it was time to start putting it all together. Once the various belts and boxes were all glued to the main structure, the two halves of the machine came together with the ceremonial supergluing of the wire pin on the drawbar. The whole unit is about a foot long, so it's a little cumbersome now!

With both halves  together, work could progress to the plumbing of the hydraulic lines. First attempt used sewing elastic. Looked ok at the time, but later in the day I wasn't happy.

The dreadlock effect just wasn't right. So off it came, to be replaced with some beading elastic I forgot I had.

In the process of the plumbing, I did drop the rear module, thankfully the only damage was the roof snapping off.

The supports snapped cleanly, allowing it to be reglued once complete. It actually made threading the elastic around this area easier as access was improved. Every cloud and all that!

There's around 10 strands of elastic on each side, using heat shrink, black wire and superglue to shape and restrain the hydraulic pipe runs.

The distinctive shape of the pipes in an S bend between the two halves of the machine have come out alright I think and as best I can, the piping follows the route of the real thing.

The lights are TPM etches, it's amazing how they add to the face of the model and all of a sudden it looks right.

Finally a few general shots, lots of little jobs to complete but it's getting there. Looking at the overhang, I think there might be ages restrictions on routing on the layout and need of an X-ray headcode!

Hopefully it'll be finished and get its final coat of matt varnish before too long. 

 

Jo

[shanks522]

Jo, that is absolutely fantastic! One of the finest pieces of scratch building I've ever seen in N.

 

Graham.

[Duncan.]

Looks magnificent excellent work. 

Regards

Duncan

[Kylestrome]

You've achieved something quite remarkable there. In terms of patience, you should be heading for a sainthood! 

 

David

[Steadfast]

Thanks for likes and comments guys. I'll get a further update online once I've made some more progress

 

Jo

[Steadfast]

I've spent the last few days working on some more RMC hoppers.

First up is a pair of the elusive third type, not modelled by farish or the NGS. This a trial 3D print from Jack, no doubt once proven it'll make its way to his Shapeways shop. The real trains are a mixture of all three wagon types, and this build are a noticably paler shade of orange. Hopefully this will remain so once I've weathered this pair! Once cleaned up, they were primed and given a coat of Halfords matt black. It's far from conclusive, but I believe a full coat of a car paint top coat (as opposed to a primer) will stop the model going sparkly over time. None of my car paint coated prints have gone sparkly yet, anyway. Next up was a custom mix of brown made from Tamiya paints applied over most of the wagon, making sure to get the nooks and crannies. The sides were then sprayed orange, again Tamiya, with a thin coating on the ends over the brown. Once painted and decalled, the paint so far should give a good base for weathering.

Onto the Farish JGAs, a good overall coating of the same brown mix, before wiping back with thinners covered cotton buds. More was applied and data panels etc wiped cleaned with a thinners soaked brush. It's noticable that these wagons seem to be dirtier on the lower third. All are based on prototype photos, the weathering varies so much wagon to wagons, each has the number written on its underside! 

I've managed to get the first two rusted up, attempting to match the previously done wagon. This uses a mix of Railmatch enamel shades, light and dark rust, orange, frame dirt and silver white. Not 100%, bit once finished should be alright. Again, there's so much variation so it all adds to the mix. The black patched wagon is the one done previously that I'm trying to replicate.

Finally, this one is to become RMC19232 in DB red. It's the Buxton Lime Industries wagon, as this is a better match now the RMC type have had the end ladders removed. The yellow will be masked before the red applied, to be the markings on the body sides to show where the internal dividers are.

 

Jo

[Steadfast]

Just a quick one to say if any readers are visiting the Bristol show today or tomorrow, the ballast cleaner and a few other projects off these pages will be with me on the DEMU stand where I'll be scratch building a type of wagon not seen on this thread before, using a design from my silhouette. Pictures will follow!

 

Jo

[Steadfast]

Here's the post show update of what I was working on all weekend whilst demonstrating on the DEMU stand. It's an ex Sheerness steel JXA, now owned by VTG. The reference photos I used are all of 3132. If this finishes up well, I'm tempted to do the other two types that look very similar

Still some work to go, but I'll keep the thread up to speed with progress

 

Jo

[Steadfast]

Well, things didn't quite go as planned. Upon getting the wagon home, I noticed it had a nice twist along its length. Everything lines up as it should, so I have to presume the chassis has a longitudinal twist in it. That means the wagon I've built so far will be sent for scrapping after it's use as a prototype is complete. However, it has given me a few little areas to tweak to make assembly easier and neater, so I'll make those changes before attempting to build version 2.

Jo

[Steadfast]

Hi everyone,

Time for the annual update! I really must post more often as stuff is in progress!

First up, a 3D printed BLA coil wagon, available from Shapeways. The decals are designed by myself, there's something like 18 numbers on the whole wagon! It still needs some matt varnish and a final dirty brown dusting to tone everything down and bring it all together.

Next here's a pair of RMC JGA wagons, which represent the second design of wagons, newer than the NGS kit but older than the Farish model. All three types run together mixed in one train. Again these are 3D prints, this time a test print, but not yet available for retail. These are the previously mentioned prototype prints from the CAD Jack produced, seen a couple of posts previously to this one. Like the BLA, they need weathering to finish and decals are designed by me.

Featured in the same post as the 3D printed RMC hoppers was the start of a DB red painted RMC JGA. Here it is! This one will be lightly weathered, at least compared to the orange "Jacobs cream cracker" rust buckets. Decals by me again, drawn from a photo of the real thing.

A simple weathering project of the Farish BYA, a wagon that responds fantastically to a bit of attention with grubby coloured paints, as well as some detail painting such as the replacement panels and yellow visibility patches.

This Farish BAA has had heavy duty stanchions added, as per a batch that primarily run in South Wales, though I have seen them further afield on odd occasions. The stanchions are cut on my Silhouette cutter in plastic sheet, then glued to make the 3D parts. A rib is removed on the floor, then the stanchion glued onto the floor. Weathering includes general grime, and a gentle orange tint to the centre of the floor which seems to be common on BAAs where the hot slabs have damaged the paint.

The recently released Revolution Trains HOAs are fantastic wagons, and I've bought quite a number of them in various liveries. The Cemex branded ones hand the logos painted out only a year or so after repaint, so I produced a set of decals to represent this.  Since I've done the artwork, I have decided to make these available for purchase to others if they wish to have them, more details on how to buy are available on my thread for Steadfast Models here. These wagons still need varnish and weathering. Each blanking patch is unique to each wagon, and along with the graffiti is  traced from photos of the real wagons. I also have graffiti for the EWS livery wagons in the works, these run in rakes mixed with the Cemex wagons.

The final wagons for this post are my HTAs. Despite having plenty on the workbench, they've worked their way onto it as a bit of a lockdown project. 

These still need weathering, the gold patches I have already applied are where on the prototype the maroon wears off, leaving the underlying gold to show through. Not many people realise these wagons are gold all over, with the maroon painted second. The create the effect, I airbrushed a mix of seven different Railmatch enamels lightly over the models, working from photos of real wagons. Each one is based on photos of a different real wagon. Why the mix of paints? Railmatch EWS gold was slightly lighter and richer than the Bachmann colour, so I needed to tone it down to get the new paint to match the wagon. Interestingly, a class 60 I have on the bench, also Farish, is much closer to Railmatch EWS gold.

The eagle eyes may well have noticed my buffer fitted outers. My set is based on the HTAs running in Mendip service (perfect partner for the new HOAs!) so needs buffer fitted wagons for the class 59s and 60s to haul them. As per the real wagons, one has maroon rectangular buffers, the other has black 'square ovals', both types from the NGS.

Again produced from photos of the real things, I've added some graffiti to my HTAs, it being very prevalent on the real things! The first was Garfield and the Severnsiders (HTA-F number 330381 if you're keen!), using one photograph printed and applied to the whole wagon side on a decal. It's distinctive and has received lots of comments at exhibitions it's been to as a work in progress. 

I've also produced some smaller graffiti, again all from wagons on the Mendip traffic, the first of which is seen keeping Garfield company.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of paint can vandalism, the stuff being done on the Mendip traffic is of a high quality and is very distinctive with its cartoons and colourful wording. There's very few "scribble" tags. 

For those of you wanting to brighten up your coal (or ex coal!) trains, the good news is I have an HTA pack in development, with more cartoon characters and some very bright artwork. The bad news, if anyone is crazy enough to want one too, is that I doubt Garfield will be in the pack, as being a one piece decal it was an absolute pig to apply. It's ok for myself, but if you'd paid money to buy that off someone? If I can be persuaded convincingly enough that Garfield is worth including, I may be swayed. Let's get the rest of the pack up to scratch first though, eh? 

Hopefully the HTAs won't hang around too long, I've got another 6 to go through the gold paint process and then the whole set can look at being weathered.

I'll report back as work progresses!

All the best

 

Jo 

[37114]

Some great modelling Jo, especially liked the Ballast cleaner and respect for building it in N, it would be hard enough in 4mm 

[Steadfast]

Cheers Rob,

I wouldn't be without my Silhouette cutter. I suppose I should get the ballast cleaner finished at some point really!

 

Jo

[millerhillboy]

some absolutely cracking stuff going on in this thread. The graffiti looks superb IMO, I've seen it done often before but for some reason this looks much more realistic, I guess cos its based on the real thing.

 

Do keep posting your work, its great to see.

[Steadfast]

Thanks @millerhillboy, as you say I guess it's down to copying the real thing. Also, I've seen decent reproductions of graffiti on models painted in 4mm by hand (again from real examples) but I N I've yet to be convinced, however the decals allow a finer result. If someone does the Hanson JHA hoppers in future, there's some amazing artwork on some of them, including these two bad boys.

It's difficult to see in that pic, but Count Duckula has gravestones silhouetted against the orange ends and says happy Halloween.

I love Star Wars so this one is right up my street. 

Back to the little trains, the workbench has gone up in the world and been graced by some weird type of wagon that has windows in it.

It's a Farish MK2A BSO, being converted to a Mk2B BFK. 17105 is a former royal train generator coach, now owned by Riviera Trains. As a result, the roof has had an exhaust silencer added and new roof vents added in different locations. The bodyshell has had windows blanked in the brake area, passenger end doors converted to wrap around, recesses cut into that end and integral tail lights added to the genny end. The windows are filled by glueing in the Farish windows then covering with filler as I thought it'd be easier that cutting plastic blanks to size. Wrong! There's one that does not want to fill properly and yes, it's one that will not be covered once the grills are added over the top. Typical! We'll get there eventually I guess. I could just settle for "noone will notice" but it's annoying me already!

The underframe has had lots of boxes and a fuel tank added. The fuel tank side isn't yet finished, still a few more boxes to add on. I'll try to do a line up with one of my DRS mk2s when it's finished as a bit of a before and after comparison.

By my standards this is moving quite quickly, I started it as Swindon show in March.

 

Jo

[porkie]

Superb work Jo. Really like the steel carrier's you have done. 

Keep the updates coming. 

 

Phil 

[MrSimon]

Hi Jo, 

Great work on the coach - filling windows is a pain but they’re looking smooth in the pictures!
 

Another graffiti fan here, yours looks spot on! I’ve tried hand painting my own but it’s really hard to fade between colours in such a tiny size, but if you’re copying more block-colour work it’s do-able.

 

Give me a shout if/when the RMC JGAs become available, I’d like 1 or 2 for my stone train.

 

Cheers

Simon

[Revolution Ben]

 

Hi Jo,

 

Great work, particularly the RFS-built JGA hoppers.  I scratchbuilt a couple of these some years ago, but the 3D prints look superb.

 

Nice job with the HOAs too!

 

Cheers

 

Ben A.

[Steadfast]

Thanks for all the comments guys. Ben, it was your scratchbuilds a few years ago that made me want to add some, and scratchbuilding was the route I was going to take until Jack said "I could do a print of that". Saved me a lot of time, and is more accurate.

In between other bits, I've been working on an OCA Bass wagon. 112230 has a rather interesting sticker on one side, a 50mph speed limit! I saw this and thought I've got to have a go, so took a load of close ups and drew up some decals. 

The complex weathering has had me putting this model off for a while, but this morning I bit the bullet. Start off with an EWS OCA wagon, remove all printing with a scalpel. Then it was out with the paints (all Tamiya), a mix of German Grey and NATO black for the black and grey shades, then a mix of Olive Drab and RAF Medium Sea Grey 2 for the green showing through. The inside face of the doors and ends were painted NATO Brown, along with rust chipping in the top of the doors on the gold stripe in the same shade.

On the greeny grey sections some underlying stenciling can be seen poking through, as can Railfreight Distribution logos at the right hand end. This is from the wagon's days in the past moving wheelsets for CDA wagons to and from St Blazey. The green is actually the very faded RFD grey showing through, which went a greeny colour when it faded.

Once these paints have fully dried it'll be out with the gloss varnish, apply the decals then further weathering over the top to blend it all together.

Hopefully this will be a nice quick little project.

A tip for anyone modelling Bass wagons in the last 10 years or so. To improve the visibility of the door pins, all OAA, OBA and OCA wagons have the stanchions and door edge painted black, with the pin and chain painted yellow. Really easy to pick the chains out with a tiny amount of yellow on a sharp cocktail stick.

 

Jo

[Duncan.]

Hey Jo,

It has my name 'Duncan' chalked on the opposite side to the 50 sign, I'm hoping you're going to include that

Cheers

Duncan

 

[Steadfast]

Evening guys.

Well, the decals are on, and yes Duncan, even the chalkings! It's all a bit bright and brash at the moment, but once they've had time to settle I'll matt varnish and further weather.

Please excuse the crude photos, they were taken at the dining table literally as I finished applying the decals. I can't wait to get this one finished.

 

Jo

 

[millerhillboy]

going to be superb that once settled down and matted a bit

 

a very unique and realistic wagon

[Steadfast]

Cheers, first light coat of varnish is on and its helped massively, a second will really finish it. Then it'll be on to the weathering. No picture yet as it hasn't really changed until I do the weathering. Progress has slowed due to being back in work, but at least nights gives me some modelling time before work. I'm trying to do a little most days during the lockdown. Hopefully on one of my rest days I'll get s good session to crack on with the weathering work. After matt varnishing this wagon, guess who picked up the wrong rattle can and sprayed his 60 matt when it should've been gloss ready for decals...oh well! Only put it back about a day, it's now very glossy!

 

Jo