Garden Railway Forum

Will be making some more of these Phil Sharples slab wagons up soon. I tried a few different types of flat wagon out and liked these best so will become standard.
As I started to put the kit together I workedin a wood grain effect with a small scribe, at the same time taking the sharp edges off with a blade.

That looks good, Paul. When its finished and weathered, do post another picture, please.

I'm genuinely astonished at how well you can scribe MDF (I've seen Cain Howley do this too, he also has a fondness for basing models on PS kits). It's a material I haven't dared to mess with as I assumed if you took the surface off it would swell up when painted or something... I've heard a lot of complaints about the material but your photo really shows just how far you can take it!

Once I finished off the wagon frames as described it got an application of wood stain. Later it got rubbed with a load of limestone dust from the bottom of the chippings pile. This did not achieve the desired result first time a lot of the dirt rubbed off with the wood stain first time, but with a couple of attempts a nice weathered wood finish was obtained.
Next wheels, couplings and shackles were added, and all these "metal" parts painted in Humbrol 113 "rust". At this point it's almost done but the cherry on the cake is still to come.

The finishing touch was to make the metal parts as convincing now as the wood. I had already used a method I found in Garden Rail magazine to rust my entire fleet of vee tippers. This method uses 3M spray glue, powdered iron appiled to said objects. When thoroughly dry dunk in copper sulphate solution and leave to dry, this kicks off the oxidization in the iron powder. Hopefully you can see the difference it makes in the picture most obvious on the wheels.

SimonWood wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 5:05 pm I'm genuinely astonished at how well you can scribe MDF (I've seen Cain Howley do this too, he also has a fondness for basing models on PS kits). It's a material I haven't dared to mess with as I assumed if you took the surface off it would swell up when painted or something... I've heard a lot of complaints about the material but your photo really shows just how far you can take it!

Thanks Simon, BTW I think I've seen some of your stuff on the web previously. I had a go at a momentum wagon with one of those things on your site. Certainly much cheaper than an SSP Slomo but I did'nt find it a great success myself. I continue to use long heavy trains for now to balance against power when running my steam locos. I've worked it out so that I get just enough to get me up the grades but the length of the train and it's weight stops it running away like a scalded cat. My railway is almost level but even small grades make a big difference to live steam this size.

That rust effect is very convincing. I must get hold of copper sulphate!

Rik

ge_rik wrote: ↑Thu May 20, 2021 8:24 am I must get hold of copper sulphate!

My bag arrived yesterday, looking forward to playing with it over the weekend!

That wagon's fantastic - I can't believe it's MDF! When I wanted a weathered look on an MDF wagon I overlaid the whole thing with thin ply - next time I'll have a go at this method instead...

Thanks for the pictures and inspiration,

Andrew.

PaulG wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 5:44 pm The finishing touch was to make the metal parts as convincing now as the wood. I had already used a method I found in Garden Rail magazine to rust my entire fleet of vee tippers. This method uses 3M spray glue, powdered iron appiled to said objects. When thoroughly dry dunk in copper sulphate solution and leave to dry, this kicks off the oxidization in the iron powder. Hopefully you can see the difference it makes in the picture most obvious on the wheels.

That's a very realistic finish you've achieved. I'm most impressed

That is a brilliant piece of weathering and wood grain effect. I must try that myself when I next to a PS model.

The rust does look very realistic too.

PaulG wrote: ↑Wed May 19, 2021 5:44 pm This method uses 3M spray glue,

Hi Paul, Which 3M product do you use? They do several, ranging from expensive to eye-watering!

I used the one called spray mount in the blue and silver cans. I have experimented with other spray cans of impact glue to do this when I ran out of the other. It did the job but goes stringy which you can get rid of but is less stait forward to use. The spray mount is meant for sticking paper/photos and so doesn't set imediately to allow for positioning. This also give you time to then dunk the sprayed parts in the powdered iron. It drys well if left for hours/a day and can then stand being dunked in the water/copper sulphate bath without washing off. This though is done with a minimum of handling while it is wet to avoid rubbing off. Once dry it's quite durable.

Cheers Paul.
Yes I've used spray mount before, I might even have a dribble left in a can somewhere in the deep recesses of a cupboard!

The two new slab wagons now complete with loads

Delightful!

Beautifully done and in a perfect setting.

Magic.

Brilliantly done and photographed.

Absolutely brilliant; truly a quality to aspire.

Spot on! Looks perfect!

Rik