Weathering a Big Unit

Stephen Gardiner Diorama, HO Scale, Locomotives, Skillbuilding

With the paint booth out and the rainy weekend continuing, after painting the Mill/Elevator, and weathering my new UK 7plank wagon, I kept the good times going and finally braved throwing some grime at my big shinny CPR SD70ACu for the Canyon Road Diorama. I got this locomotive in 2022, and have been staring at it for near on four years going “it is way to clean and shiny”, but I struggle with weathering factory fresh models even though I want my models to look alive and used. The problem is units on the CPR (now CPKC) go from clean to “have you ever been washed” in no time working out west in the rockies, and once they’ve gotten mucky, it seems they never truly come clean. I didn’t want my loco to look beaten, I wanted it to look used, and like its been out on the road for a bit but not in the trenches. As I’ve written about, I’ve been working my way through airbrushing challenges, but that meant I had my old brush available to use as an air duster as its clean of all paint. This actually worked really nicely to blow dust off the locomotive and out of panel lines and recesses. It wasn’t badly dusty, but there is no point in painting the dust into the model if I can avoid it!!

Before and after side view, the browns on the underbody don’t show up nearly as well in pictures as they do in person.
Before and after of getting some exhaust muck on the roof.

This was super basic first pass weathering. Some dirt tones on the frames and trucks, and smoke exhaust on the roof. I use Iwata’s Com Art Real Deal Weathering set of pre-mixed super thinned weathering paints. This is something I picked up years ago via Pierre Oliver for quick base weathering of freight cars and equipment. The paint sprays nice, in light layers and allows building up of density of colour. This shows really well on the roof of the unit where the transparent smoke made all the details and lines pop, but I was able to build it up gently and create gradation with the greatest depth closest to the exhaust and less grime elsewhere. I am less happy with the dirt on the frames, as it frankly dissappears under the normal display lighting. I could see it in person, but I was being super hesitant working through my paranoia at “ruining” a model that cost hundreds of dollars.

Before and after of CP 7000 on Canyon Road, as with the paint booth shots, the rooftop exhaust shows better than the dirt on the frames/underbody. But now I’ve broken down and weathered, I can hopefully push it a bit further.

So for now, its back in the display but looking a little more used, and I can continue to work on that. I’m sure some people wonder why I drone on sometimes about my hangups, but I know I’m not the only modeller out there who has or will have them, I believe in being open about a lot of things, because it helps me and hopefully helps others. At the end of the day, had I messed up this first weathering, there are always ways to fix that, I have made more than my fair share of mistakes, and plenty of my projects have gone sideways and tried very hard to find their way into the bin instead of the finish line, but overcoming challenges and finding solutions is part of learning, and part of being a modeller.

Tuesday Train 508

Stephen Gardiner Tuesday Train

A GO Transit Milton train, seen departing Kipling Station for Toronto Union Station, as seen from a TTC Subway car as my subway makes a simultaneous departure at 0642 eastbound in the morning. Been commuting from Etobicoke for 8 years and never managed to have the timing line up or be awake enough to shoot it the couple of times it came close. Video of the GO overtaking the subway below.

Another Big Wagon

Stephen Gardiner Freight Car, O Gauge

When my good friend Trevor Marshall broke down my admittedly weak resolve against buying some 7mm GWR British O Gauge models a couple of years ago, one of the things I said was if I ever found one of the super limited run of Highley Mining Company wagons done for a group on the Severn Valley Railway (where the mine was), that I would buy one regardless of the cost. Well, that opportunity never presented itself, but recently for no clear reason I was on the Footplate Hobbies site, a hobby shop in Kidderminster a few blocks from the SVR, and I discovered they had commissioned a run of two Highley Mining Company wagons in 7mm. Well, money where my mouth was time, and one was immediately and promptly ordered from bed on a Saturday morning!

Mail in less than a week from order to Ontario. a 7mm Dapol 7 plank wagon in Highley Mining Company livery.

With the car in hand, it was quickly out of the box and into my short GWR train. I now have two 7 plank wagons, the Great Western liveried one and the Highley liveried one. I had hoped to take my little train to the recent Great British Train show in Brampton that happens every other year where I had an offer to operate on a 7mm layout, but I wasn’t able to go. I sadly don’t have the space to actually create a working 7mm layout at the moment, but the size and feel of them has me really considering a big British layout for when the day comes that Liberty Village has run its course (don’t worry that day isn’t anytime soon!! I am dedicated to “finishing” the layout!). I had the paint booth and airbrush out for other projects on the rainy weekend, and after they went well the good feelings carried me on to do a light first pass of weathering to get rid of the shiny red plastic feel of the car. Its the nature of models, they have some sheen. A few quick passes with a couple of different tones of dust/dirt and some smoke to tone down the interior, and we’re off to the races. I still want to figure out how to create the look of coal dust in the empty wagon, and probably make/buy coal loads for them, but for now, the interior no longer glows pale beige in the dark!

Into the paint booth for a quick hit of weathering to take off the bright red plastic shine. Still need to brave weathering my 48xx.

More to come hopefully soon in my 7mm mini-adventure. I need to get back to working on that running/photography mini board and on my first kit of a milk tank. Not to mention appropriate weathering for the 48xx loco. Each wagon that gets added and weathered makes it stand out even more as being far too shiny (and some light grime would help the under-body pop some).

What do do on a rainy weekend? Paint a big building

Stephen Gardiner HO Scale, Scratch Building, Structure

This weekend has been a washout in Toronto for leaving the house, and even if it wasn’t, falling off my bicycle last weekend on our long weekend has left me in a grump and sore a week on. Fortunately didn’t do more than tear a chunk out of my elbow when I went down, but haven’t been motivated to do a whole lot as a result. In between watching sports on TV and doing load after load of laundry on Saturday, I managed to find the motivation to yank the paint booth out and mix some various sand/buff/browns together to create a supply of beigy brick paint for the mill. Frankly I mixed way more than I needed by the time thinner and flow enhancer were added, but more is better than not enough.

Into the spray booth with a mix of buff/beige paint and throwing colour at the Mill/Elevator complex.

I’ve been having on and off again problems air brushing, but low and behold on Saturday spraying well thinned paint, it did what it was supposed to do, didn’t run dry, didn’t clog, sprayed nice light layers letting me build up colour. Its amazing how when you actually pay attention to the process and do little things like properly thin your paint before trying to spray it. Will I finally have learned the lesson and get it right when next I spray, who’s to say!

Buff brick on the Mill and Elevator. Makes a huge difference from unpainted primer.

Sunday remained overcast and nasty, but with another slate of car racing, football, baseball and hockey games to watch and work between. Mid afternoon while watching the Arsenal celebrations and Blue Jays misery, out came the tape, but in a change of scenery I brought it all down to the kitchen table. Why sit in the office for something I can do anywhere in the house, but with better TV viewing! I clearly have a tape fetish, but tape is cheap, and a quick masking off of the primary brick allows me to spray the darker window colours. Doesn’t need to be an exact science as in due course hand painting will add details and eventually a combination of light spray and pan pastel weathering will help to hide any minor misses.

Tape attack at the Dining Room Table and on to the paint booth to paint windows and doors.
Painted windows. Now on to hand brushing details before any more airbrush work. And need to design and build the mill head house before I can weather and blend.

Every step helps, going from grey primer to painted walls and windows painted makes a big difference in terms of how it looks on the layout. Still lots of work to go on both the Mill/Elevator and Power House, painting trim, weathering, clean ups and the head house on the mill which I have not even started to design beyond my foam core mock-up/rough in.