Garden Railway Forum

Andrew, stop worrying too much about possible damage to the paint. When you did my wagons the paint was brilliant. The stock is going underneath the house, so long as they are kept dry and no dust or anything of that elk get into the box how can the bubblewrap damage them.

By the way mate here is that train I bought last year and I eventually got the wrapping off, it has been wrapped up again in the bubblewrap it came in...
This is it still it's its box...

And this is a shelf with a few stock on in the garage.

Don't mean to take over your thread Andrew, I am just showing that if they are dry and kept out of the sun.............

Ah, so that's what was in the box! That's the same type as the one that's providing the power beneath my chocolate factory Sentinel loco...

Cheers,

Andrew.

Andrew wrote: ↑Mon Jan 21, 2019 2:13 pm Eeek! Although I'm guessing that was a problem with the paint going soft, rather than the bubblewrap itself -

That's also my opinion, as there is some ropey paint out there nowadays........

Bubble wrap is made from polyethylene and polyethylene film is an archive grade storage material. It doesn't react with much, which is why it is very difficult to get paint to stick to it.

Foam rubber is a different matter, as both natural latex and polyurethane foams are degraded by oxygen if not formulated properly. Keeping it in a dark place doesn't stop the breakdown, as I know to my cost.

Graeme

Hello all,

I found a little time for some modelling this weekend and so dug the tipper trucks out.The rake has now grown to five, with a converter wagon at each end so that loco's don't need multi-height couplings to pull them. Those had a 5mm chunk of foam board added to the ends of the frames, and all of the wagons received buffing plates (I think you'd call them that?) on the ends to cover the gaps in the frames where the couplings used to emerge. Here are two of the wagons, including one of the converter type, on the right:


And here's the rake on test:


It ran pretty well, except one wagon which was a proper Limping Lulu and kept derailing - the problem turned out to be that the axles had been replaced at some point, rather badly. I was able to swap them for those from another wagon, but I'll have to get another pair at some point.

As you might be able to see in the pictures, I distorted the sides a little by heating them with a candle flame and then pushing and prodding them to imitate damage inflicted by hard use, an idea pinched from Rik's blog, I think. The different vintage skips seem to be made of different plastics, so some were easier to work with than others - results were mixed, but I think they'll be OK once they're painted and rusted. That'll happen once the weather warms up (and I've purchased some iron powder) but in the meantime I'll add some nail gem rivets...

Cheers all,

Andrew.

Looking good, Andrew. Your denting of the sides looks a lot more successful than my efforts. I think it depends on the composition of the plastic.

Rik

Very good Andrew, I must get round to doing some skips after all the other jobs that need doing...
At the moment I haven't been to good, so they are all on hold....

Hello all,

Apologies, for various reasons it's been yonks since I posted on the Forum, but here I am with a little tipper truck progress.

I'd decided that I wanted to add some "nail art" rivet detail to my wagons before painting them - and that a template would be required to make sure that all the rivets ended up roughly correctly-spaced and more-or-less in a straight line. I must confess that I was very pleased with the solution I came up with - the little strip of perforated metal that holds Peco rail-joiners! Here it is, with a skip marked up and ready to go...


I've now added rivets to all five wagons in the initial rake, which are dismantled ready for painting next time some time off coincides with some relatively good weather. I'm going to attempt to simulate rust using fine iron filings, and I think getting that in the right places in the right amounts is going to be tricky so I definitely want to make sure I've got enough time and space to do the job as well as I can...

Here are the wagons awaiting a visit from the spray can...


Cheers all,

Andrew.

That is an inspired solution to the spacing issue, brilliant!

Brilliant idea, I must confess as a serial hoarder I have nearly all those strips in the bottom of my bits box, confident that one day they would find a purpose.

And just when you thought this forum was sleepy and behind the times another great idea emerges

Morning all!

Yesterday, I took a stroll down to the shops, passing my local station on the way, where that particular stretch of the Great Western mainline was being relaid. The kit on display was pretty impressive - a shiny new class 70 diesel with a long train of bogie ballast wagons, tampers and other machinery, road/rail diggers etc - but I still felt sorry for the poor chaps in orange who worked all weekend in some horrible weather. They're clearly making better progress than the other big rail maintenance work happening locally, the relaying of the (WH)WHR at Penlan, just a quarter of a mile away, but we'll catch up - the purpose of my stroll was to purchase a tin of Poundland primer to progress my own on-track plant project, the rake of manky tippers...

I've started with just one tipper to see how I get on with a rusting technique involving vinegar and fine iron filings - I've used it before but never been entirely satisfied with the results, we'll see how it goes this time... Here's where I was at yesterday afternoon, with the skip and chassis painted, sprinkled in filings and sprayed with vinegar:

At that stage it just looked like someone had tipped sand over it, but this morning most of the grey filings had gone brown, with some orange appearing in places - promising... I sprayed with more vinegar and we'll see how it looks tonight... By the way, if it's successful this is how I plan to finish the roof of your station building Tom - a little dilapidated rather than completely derelict, but it wouldn't be right if a RWLR building didn't feature at least a little rust!

Cheers all,

Andrew

That's interesting to see.
After reading the article in this month's Garden Rail I purchased some Binnie Tippers at Leamington on Saturday and was about to order some Iron Powder and Copper Sulphate from Amazon this morning. I'm going to leave the Copper Sulphate and try vinegar instead. I also assume you sprinkled the Iron into the wet paint rather than using an adhesive after it had dried.

Will be very interested in seeing the end result. Looking promising so far.

Hello again!

I tried this technique on some scrap plastic a while ago. I got some lovely orange/brown rust, but I'd used "medium" filings and the texture was too coarse. If gone for "fine" this time - there's still some discernible texture, but I'm hoping that will look like pitted metal.

Yes, I'm applying direct to wet paint, doing the inside of the skip first, then turning it over to do the outside without covering the filings on the inside. I'm using a Lidl peppercorn refill pot as a shaker to apply the stuff, I think I might add some finer mesh for future applications, so I can get the stuff where I want it better. I'm diluting the vinegar, c50/50 with water - not quite sure why, I think I read it somewhere!

I'll keep you posted. I'm relatively optimistic but think I'll still want to apply some paint washes/weathering to finish the thing off - the bits that aren't rusty look too clean! Possibly I should have weathered with paint first, then sprinkled the filings over a coat of matt varnish...

Cheers all,

Andrew.

So far, so good - I think...

The inside's beginning to look quite pleasing, and the outside's not bad...

I'd like a little more of the orangey stuff on the outside if possible - I've sprayed some more vinegar and will await further developments...

Cheers,

Andrew.

Hello again,

I seem to have reached "peak vinegar" with this, in that no matter how much I spray on the result doesn't really change. The tipper currently looks like this:
I'm fairly pleased with it, but would still like a bit more orange in the rust, so it's currently parked in the damp and dingy tunnel to see what that does... Another option is a light rubbing with fine wire wool - I've just read Rob Bennet's article on rusting skips in the Association Leighton Buzzard guide, and that's what he recommends...

Even if I can't get the colour to change any more, it'll do - this rake was only every supposed to be a quick job. I'll get the rest of 'em done over the coming weeks...

Cheers,

Andrew.

That's a big improvement from how they started off . Just a thought: you could try a wash of orange/brown paint if you can't get any more rust?
Loving the overgrown track!

George

steamgeorge wrote: ↑Sun Mar 24, 2019 9:11 pm That's a big improvement from how they started off . Just a thought: you could try a wash of orange/brown paint if you can't get any more rust?
Loving the overgrown track!

George

Thanks George! Yes, I think I'll add a wash to some of the bits that are still too clean - I'll probably roughly stencil some numbers on too. Glad you like the track - it's got a little too overgrown, I'll have to trim it before the main running season starts...

I got the first wagon out in the sunshine for a proper look today, and I reckon it's looking alright - the rust tones look really different depending on the light. I think the wire wool rub had some impact too, although I couldn't swear to it...


Is anyone getting fed up of looking at this little skip yet? I am, so I decided I'd done enough deliberating and got stuck into the rest of the rake. Here they are, painted (three more grey, one green for a little variety) and sprinkled and awaiting a spray of vinegar...

Cheers all,

Andrew.

Hello again,

The tippers continue to progress... The first coat of vinegar dried very quickly due to a combination of sunshine and breeze, leaving slightly odd "tide mark" patterns in places. I remembered that Rob Bennet had suggested letting the vinegar dry in a damp environment, so yesterday evening I reapplied the vinegar, put the wagons on the top shelf in the bathroom, and had a hot shower with the windows closed. As you'd expect, I removed my clothes before undertaking this activity - I believe that's known as "glamour modelling"???

Any way. here's a photo - just of the wagons, you'll be pleased to hear, not the process!


They certainly look as grotty as I'd wanted - with a little more work I hope I can refine the finish a little...

Cheers,

Andrew.

Andrew, they are looking well, I like the rust effect, particularly on the green one.
Please don't think I'm being critical but all the way along I've thought the grey ones seem to have a sort of pale metallic green sheen to them. Is that just a photographic artefact?