Thursday, 10 April 2014

RT Models Dinorwic flat and maintenence wagons.

These two OO9 wagons, from the RT Models range, are whitemetal kits for a couple of Dinorwic wagons.

The maintenence wagon is basically a flat with ends, the ends being supported by bent steel strip along the sides. The strips are, like the rest of the wagon, whitemetal and therefore rather heavy in appearence, due to the material used rather than the patternmaking. I replaced the castings with 1mm x .4mm brass strip. Before bending and glueing in place I drilled holes in the middle and ends, once glued these holes were drilled through into the wagon body and brass rod glued into them to add strength and represent bolt heads;


The cast strapping is in the foreground for comparison. Here it is finished;


The flat wagon is just the same, but without the ends.



Axleboxes are seperate castings, I fitted one side before painting and glued the second side in afterwards trapping the wheelset in place.

The photos that I've seen of full size wagons show them to be red oxide, so I used red oxide Hycote auto primer straight from the can. The decks are bare wood, and for them I used Lifecolor's Weathered Wood acrylic set. Painting is my achilles heel and I'm no artist so using a set like that makes choosing colours far easier. I used a photo in Gordon & Ann Hatherhill's 'Slate Quarry Album' for painting inspiration, but I'm not sure if I've captured the wood correctly. An airbrushed coat of Phoenix Precision matt varnish finishes things off.

Couplings are also RT Models, with the larger loops. I like etched couplers which I find to be far more discreet than the big plastic Bemo items we all used in the past. They're still a bit big though.

Paul.

7 comments:

  1. Nice to see some built Paul. I made the masters (strictly to RT's spec.!) ages ago!
    Martin

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm rather pleased with these two Martin (although I'm not sure about my attempt at painted wood), in fact the maintenence wagon is my favourite OO9 wagon so far. The axleboxes are particulary neat castings.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like these very much, too. I have stockpiled some RT models items for when I might actually have some time...well done with the masters, Martin. Going by some wooden floored wagons on the FR I would say that the wood weathers more to a silver-grey, but your paint job looks very fine Paul.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Your probably right Iain, I did try to copy a photo but those floors, although passable, still don't look quite right to my eye. Still, I'm not changing them now just in case I mess them up.
    Painting and weathering really is my weakness, hopefully one that will inprove with practice. I think that I'll have to get out with the camera and take lots of photos of aged wood, lorry beds for example, to work from.

    ReplyDelete
  5. If it's any help, I usually paint the "wood" a dark grey colour, then lightly dry-brush a lighter grey with just a touch of silver in it. This brings out the grain nicely. I think that your flat beds look great if they are to represent new wood, though.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks Iain, I'll try that (but not on these two!).

    ReplyDelete

Feel free to leave comments but please note that due to spam issues they are subject to moderation and therefore unlikely to appear immediately. Don't let that put you off though.
Spam never gets published but does make me laugh! Anonymous comments don't get published either.
If you're an engineering company trying to use this blog for free advertising, ask yourself this. What have you got to offer me in return for having your website link published?
And whilst your reading this, everything I post is subject to copyright.