Just a small model making job - glazing the windows of the 3D printed signal box. For this I used my trusted glazing product Glue n Glaze. For small panes it is a great produce. It looks a mess when applied and there is an art to getting it to spread across the aperture of the window pane but once mastered it is a fairly quick process.
Another job done on this structure so hopefully before too long I can get it back on the layout1
There has ben a bit of tidying going on at the rocks By rail Museum!
The Restoration Shed was particularly tidy with all the stuff that has found its way onto the rolling stock removed although I am not sure where it has ended up!
Continuing with this theme of tidying, it was time to do some more vegetational butchery! This time though, productivity on the destruction front would be double as loyal blog reader Mrs. B was at the Museum looking for something to do. Well, that looking was soon sorted as a quick tutorial on the controls of Morris Mower saw Mrs. B head off into the jungle of vegetation with Morris leaving me to do some much needed strimming with Sammy Strimmer!
So this....
become this...
I know that vegetation has not been dealt with for at least five years! Looks neater now though!
You always find odd things when wandering around the site such as this old birds nest made on the chassis of one of the wagons.
I also got a chance to take a look at some of the rolling stock I never normally get to see cloose up such as this bogie flat.
It may not have moved in a few years but it will be needed to move rail and sleepers once the passing loop is started at the end of the line.
Something that probably has no likely future service is this coach which unfortunately was vandalised some years ago.
Something I would like to see come back into service is this rather unique rake of side tipping wagons.
As a rake of 6 wagons they would look stunning restored and running behind one of the locos. The chassis are fine on the wagons but the bodies would need a lot of work to bring them back to life.
Whilst I imagined the fully restored wagons running Mrs. B had run out of petrol for mowing but had done a great job in keeping the place looking tidy. At this rate we may run out of jobs to do!
As you can see and following on from yesterdays post I have added some window frames from plastic strip to the 34D printed platelayers hut. I have also put some filler around the top of the chimney breast to simulate the cement flaunching that is there in rea life.
With that done it was out with the rattle can of grey primer to give it a base coat.
Having added some brick detail to the chimney breast of the 3D printed platelayers hut it was time to add some texture to the walls. A sheet of embossed corrugated iron plastic sheet provided this. Some careful measurements and cutting produced the necessary parts.
I even added some plastic strip for the door. Just need to do something about that window and then it will be paint time!
Looks a bit more interesting then what it started out as!
I must admit that when I bought it I did not examine it that closely otherwise I would have noted the lack of any detail surfaces. No representation of brick or stone on the chimney breast or wood planks for the hut itself.
A bit disappointing but not a problem especially when the WMD Stores have the necessary items to improve matters in stock! So work has started on the chimney breast with some embossed brick plastic card being cut to size and glued onto the flat surface of the 3D print.
Took a bit of time but worth the effort. Next up are the walls of the hut which should give a bit more interest to the model.
Given the rather garish nature of the blue paint applied to the 3D printed signal box, it needed toning down. That was done after the tiles on the roof were painted and the ridge tiles painted a contrasting clay colour. Several washes of dilute black paint and gravity have tones it all down making it look a bit more life like.
still a few things to do like glaze the windows but it is progressing well!
I removed the masking tape from the signal box with some trepidation having airbrushed the wooden parts. There is always a danger of bleed through or slight misalignment but happily and probably unusually, my efforts were fairly successful with only a slight bit of bleed on the roof which will be painted over.
With the masking off I attended to the brickwork using my favourite method where the brickwork has some relief to the mortar courses which is the three coloured pencil method! By randomly rubbing the pencils over the brick faces a random and varied brick colour appears whilst the mortar remains a grey colour.
With that done I have started picking out the roof tiles in random shades of grey to provide some variety to the overall look of the roof.
More to do on that but the signal box is taking on some character!
Whilst I wait for the paint to harden on the Italeri Mercedes MP4 truck cab parts I made use of the time by digging out the 3D printed signal box from its resting place on the My Last Great Project 00 gauge layout. Apart from playing operating it over the last few months nothing else has been done to it since probably Christmas time so it is time to get something done!
I had already primed the signal box with a coat of rattle can grey so I had a base on which to put some top coat. As with the station building built from a Dapol kit last year, the woodwork is a dark blue. Given the expanse of wood and the intricacies of the window frames my choice of paint application system was the airbrush! First off though I had to mask the parts that were not to be blue as it would be a job to paint over the blue with other colours.
In the meantime I need to let the paint dry and then see how effective my masking was!
It may look like Pam had decked John at the Ricks By Rail Museum...
It was a case of masking tape woes as I head back to building the Italeri Mercedes-Benz Actros MP4 started at the beginning of the year. There are some cab related parts that require painting on both sides. As is my normal way, I attached the smaller parts to a board with masking tape. The problem was that having been sprayed on one side so long ago, the glue on the masking tape had in the recent heat begun to melt onto the parts that were attached yo it! The result was that I had to rub down a number of parts before respraying them and once touch dry, removing them from the masking tape to avoid another similar woe situation!
