Building things

I've always liked building things, lego as a kid, then models, progressing through to much bigger things like sheds, house additions and furniture later in life.
I haven't built a plastic model kit since I was a kid. Most of these were done rather badly when I look back of them now, parts that didn't line up and glue everywhere were the main problems. Back then, the only glue I knew about was the stuff in small toothpaste-like tubes of cement of lots of different brands. They all had one thing in common as I remember, they formed string like mozzarella on pizza, and it got everywhere. Ian at Hobbyland in Hornsby put me onto some glue that was a revolution to me, thin Tamiya glue in a bottle with a brush built into the cap. The liquid being thin enough that capillary action draws the glue to where it is needed, not all over the model in places it is not wanted. I'd always heard about this type of glue, but I was sceptical, how could it possibly work?
I also bought my first kit in a long time, an AR kits MLE wagon, something simple to learn on. With the benefit of years of experience in tool usage now coming to the fore, and sharp knives, and a variety of them, this kit went together really well. It also helped that the parts were very well designed to go together and the instructions were very well written. Soon I had a model that I can be proud of.

I painted this in Model Master Gun Metal, can't bring myself to attempt weathering it yet, still practicing that.

Flushed with success I moved onto a Silverman S truck. Same paint colour, this makes it a just repainted one, and my first play with adding hand-rails.

The instructions weren't as clear as the AR ones, but the design of the moulding was done very well, and I'm quite happy with how this one came together.

Sticking with 4 wheelers I picked up a Berg's CV model. This one has not been so well thought out, the pieces are quite difficult to line up and the instructions were quite vague. However I did manage to get a reasonable model out of it in the end.

Painted this one in Tamiya German Grey, weathering of timber with SMS grey wash and metal with Model Master Oak wash, rust paint on the buffers and couplers.

At this year's Forestville exhibition I picked up some un-made AR NGBF wheat wagons. I added a bit of detail, not too much, especially underside, it's nice having detail under there, but at the end of the day, you generally don't see it, it can come adrift in the case of a de-railment, or the 5 year-old's friends will open up the display case...

I did this in Model Master Grimy black, and done a not too prototypical logo on it. I grew up with the L7 logo and really like it, it's my railway anyway...

Recently I have made a Sivermaz NGTY wheat hopper, to play with a curved body wagon, possibly went a little too dark on the paint job here, Railey Freight Wagon Grey, with a bit of PTC blue oversprayed at the ends. Some SMS grey wash was applied all over. I'm happy with this rather dark heavily weathered thing. Once it was weighted to a similar amount to an Austrians WHX and fitted with decent bogies, it rides very well too.

This was one of my first paint jobs with an airbrush.

I am in the process of finishing off a Camco FO coach, this was done in Railey Tuscan with the airbrush, roof in the Grimy Black, with added seats from Olddog. extra weight in the form of sinkers were added into the toilets, hidden behind the platform entry doors, and in the battery boxes underneath. Just got to work up the courage to place long decal stripes under the windows. I have 2 more of these kits waiting to be built. No 2 of them will look alike, they will be in Indian red, with silver and navy roofs.

Lots more of these to come. There's something most satisfying about building it yourself, they may not be perfect, but sometimes that's the charm of them. Some of the quite expensive new RTR stuff to my eye is a little clinical and cold, too perfect really, which for a lot of people is what they want, I suppose.