http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,896027,00.html
Considering the title of this blog, I was interested by the sub-title 'Nowhere to Nowhere' half way down the page.
Wednesday, 27 September 2006
Saturday, 23 September 2006
Track ballasting
After my track painting experiments, I ended up with a very pleasing looking 18" length of track which sat on the shelf for a couple of weeks along with a couple of weathered wagons and my almost-complete-but-unpainted brake van, looking very nice.
However, something was missing - ballast. And so the last couple of weeks have seen me basically 'ruin' a very nice length of track by using it as a test-bed for various colours, grades and methods of ballast. To those modellers that are happy to just go out, buy the first bag of grey ballast they clap eyes on and proceed to churck it all over their track, my approach may seem obsessive, but I wanted to experiment until I found something that looked as realistic as possible before committing to a particular method for diaromas and the future layout.
I've tried Woodland Scenics grey, light grey, buff, and brown ballast in medium and fine grades, and Carrs light grey 4mm and 2mm grades. I've experimented with 'painting' glue between the sleepers then sprinkling the ballast onto it, and laying the ballast dry and then glueing using a pipette loaded with watered-down glue, and various combinations of the two. I've tried PVA and Copydex....
The conclusions?
PVA gives a much firmer hold and dries invisible. The time-honoured method of laying the ballast dry and then adding the glue using a pipette appears best - watered down PVA (50:50) with a drop of washing-up liquid to decrease surface tension. One crucial step I overlooked initially was to spay the dry ballast with a mist of water before applying the glue. This helps to 'bed down' the ballast and prevents it lifting and moving when the glue is applied.
The Woodland Scenics ballast looks far more realistic than the C&L (which looks too much like miniature lead shot, and even their 'light grey' is far too dark and turns a greenish colour once wet.) I think a mixture of fine and medium is best, at least for running lines. I shall experiment with ash ballast for sidings etc. later. So far I prefer the 'light grey' Woodland Scenics ballast colour, although I've just ordered some 'grey blend' as this looks great on 'Much Meddling'. I'm also convinced by Chris Baker's use of weathering powders rather than airbrushing to weather the ballasted trackwork so will be trying that myself at some stage.
The formula for good ballasting, it would seem, consists of the following factors:
However, something was missing - ballast. And so the last couple of weeks have seen me basically 'ruin' a very nice length of track by using it as a test-bed for various colours, grades and methods of ballast. To those modellers that are happy to just go out, buy the first bag of grey ballast they clap eyes on and proceed to churck it all over their track, my approach may seem obsessive, but I wanted to experiment until I found something that looked as realistic as possible before committing to a particular method for diaromas and the future layout.
I've tried Woodland Scenics grey, light grey, buff, and brown ballast in medium and fine grades, and Carrs light grey 4mm and 2mm grades. I've experimented with 'painting' glue between the sleepers then sprinkling the ballast onto it, and laying the ballast dry and then glueing using a pipette loaded with watered-down glue, and various combinations of the two. I've tried PVA and Copydex....
The conclusions?
PVA gives a much firmer hold and dries invisible. The time-honoured method of laying the ballast dry and then adding the glue using a pipette appears best - watered down PVA (50:50) with a drop of washing-up liquid to decrease surface tension. One crucial step I overlooked initially was to spay the dry ballast with a mist of water before applying the glue. This helps to 'bed down' the ballast and prevents it lifting and moving when the glue is applied.
The Woodland Scenics ballast looks far more realistic than the C&L (which looks too much like miniature lead shot, and even their 'light grey' is far too dark and turns a greenish colour once wet.) I think a mixture of fine and medium is best, at least for running lines. I shall experiment with ash ballast for sidings etc. later. So far I prefer the 'light grey' Woodland Scenics ballast colour, although I've just ordered some 'grey blend' as this looks great on 'Much Meddling'. I'm also convinced by Chris Baker's use of weathering powders rather than airbrushing to weather the ballasted trackwork so will be trying that myself at some stage.
The formula for good ballasting, it would seem, consists of the following factors:
- colour (depends on area modelled but also to some extent, just what 'looks right').
- grade (or combination of grades)
- texture/shape of the individual 'pieces' of ballast
- the right depth (enough to cover the track base completely, but still allowing some daylight between ballast and rails)
- flat, neat, even appearance
- securely glued into place - no loose chippings
Wednesday, 6 September 2006
Track weathering
After a very slow and painstaking session of track painting the other night, having hit upon a colour mix that seemed to work (and still looked ok the following morning!) and established something of a painting technique I finished the whole piece tonight in under an hour (this is the 18" long miniature diorama/test project I'm building).
Its all very well reading how epople do things in model railway magazines, but nothing beats hands on practise. The last painting session I was struggling with the paint drying out in the metal lid I was using as a palette, which meant I had to keep adding and mixing more paint. Tonight I tried mising up the paint with a liberal amount of thinners (Revell 'Colour mix' to be precise) - this proved very effective, and coupled with the much faster rate of work meant the paint stayed at a useable consistency throughout the session. When it did start to thicken up a bit I just added more thinners. (Of course, if you carried on doing this too many times the paint would become too thin.)
I think the colour proportions I gave last time were a bit on the 'black' side. I think the 'dark chocolate' sleeper colour is closer to 2:1 orange to black and the 'milk chocolate' rail colour 3:1 or more depending on the brand of chocolate (or freshness of rust!).
I was thinking about the track colour while looking through some magazines - close up, weathered track seems often to appear quite an orangey colour - more orange than my 'milk chocolate' brown. However, from a distance this is less evident. Model track painted in this way tends to stand out too much, so I think the darker colour is called for - although it seems to go against the general rule of thumb that the further away you view something from the lighter it appears. I don't know, all I can say is that my piece of track satisfies my sense of realism, for now at least!
Its all very well reading how epople do things in model railway magazines, but nothing beats hands on practise. The last painting session I was struggling with the paint drying out in the metal lid I was using as a palette, which meant I had to keep adding and mixing more paint. Tonight I tried mising up the paint with a liberal amount of thinners (Revell 'Colour mix' to be precise) - this proved very effective, and coupled with the much faster rate of work meant the paint stayed at a useable consistency throughout the session. When it did start to thicken up a bit I just added more thinners. (Of course, if you carried on doing this too many times the paint would become too thin.)
I think the colour proportions I gave last time were a bit on the 'black' side. I think the 'dark chocolate' sleeper colour is closer to 2:1 orange to black and the 'milk chocolate' rail colour 3:1 or more depending on the brand of chocolate (or freshness of rust!).
I was thinking about the track colour while looking through some magazines - close up, weathered track seems often to appear quite an orangey colour - more orange than my 'milk chocolate' brown. However, from a distance this is less evident. Model track painted in this way tends to stand out too much, so I think the darker colour is called for - although it seems to go against the general rule of thumb that the further away you view something from the lighter it appears. I don't know, all I can say is that my piece of track satisfies my sense of realism, for now at least!
Tuesday, 5 September 2006
Lets get some things clear...
It might be worth me making a couple of things clear about this 'hobby' of mine, for all you readers out there who might have any doubts in your minds...
1) I am not a trainspotter!
In fact, I don't even own an anorak, and I certainly don't stand on railway stations scribbling train numbers in a grubby notebook or pointing a video camera at everything on wheels while eating jam sandwiches out of a tupperware box! OK, I admit that for a while during my school days I did, unfortunately, suffer a bout of 'anorakitis', but it was mercifully short-lived! Quite apart from the stigma attached (fairly or not) to trainspotters these days, I have very little interest in modern railways anyway - the very things that do appeal to me about railways seem to have all but disappeared from them in recent years.
2) I do not own, and have no desire to own, a train-set!
Train sets are to model railways what colouring-in with crayons is to watercolour painting. Train sets are toys to be got out of the box, put together on the living-room floor, played with for an hour, then packed away in the box again. A model railway, on the other hand, is an attempt to portray as accurately as possible in miniature a piece of railway within its surroundings - landscape, architecture etc. Of course, people take this to differing levels - one person's piece of flourescent green sponge is another person's tree! Personally I find that very few of the models I see in magazines and on the web satisfy my own sense of 'realism'. But there are a few that come close - Martyn Welch's 'Hursley' being top of the list by a mile. Maybe I'll never reach those dizzying heights of modelling perfection but I will continue to aim for them nonetheless!
1) I am not a trainspotter!
In fact, I don't even own an anorak, and I certainly don't stand on railway stations scribbling train numbers in a grubby notebook or pointing a video camera at everything on wheels while eating jam sandwiches out of a tupperware box! OK, I admit that for a while during my school days I did, unfortunately, suffer a bout of 'anorakitis', but it was mercifully short-lived! Quite apart from the stigma attached (fairly or not) to trainspotters these days, I have very little interest in modern railways anyway - the very things that do appeal to me about railways seem to have all but disappeared from them in recent years.
2) I do not own, and have no desire to own, a train-set!
Train sets are to model railways what colouring-in with crayons is to watercolour painting. Train sets are toys to be got out of the box, put together on the living-room floor, played with for an hour, then packed away in the box again. A model railway, on the other hand, is an attempt to portray as accurately as possible in miniature a piece of railway within its surroundings - landscape, architecture etc. Of course, people take this to differing levels - one person's piece of flourescent green sponge is another person's tree! Personally I find that very few of the models I see in magazines and on the web satisfy my own sense of 'realism'. But there are a few that come close - Martyn Welch's 'Hursley' being top of the list by a mile. Maybe I'll never reach those dizzying heights of modelling perfection but I will continue to aim for them nonetheless!
Sunday, 3 September 2006
Track weathering
My first 'stop-gap project' has turned into a pure test-case for track weathering. I was perhaps rather naive to imagine that the first colour I mixed up would be the right one. In fact its taken a number of attempts to arrive at what (for now) appears to be a satisfactory colour for the rails and sleepers.
The easiest way to describe it is that the rails are milk-chocolate and the sleepers dark cholcolate! A simple mix of Humbrol matt black (33) and orange (82) approximately 3:1 for the rails and 2:1 for the sleepers.
My initial attempts were much lighter and combined a lot more shades, but it seems that the darker colour looks a lot more realistic, and in fact the simple mixing of two colours is perfectly adequate.
Well, I'll probably change my mind tomorrow but that's it for now!
The easiest way to describe it is that the rails are milk-chocolate and the sleepers dark cholcolate! A simple mix of Humbrol matt black (33) and orange (82) approximately 3:1 for the rails and 2:1 for the sleepers.
My initial attempts were much lighter and combined a lot more shades, but it seems that the darker colour looks a lot more realistic, and in fact the simple mixing of two colours is perfectly adequate.
Well, I'll probably change my mind tomorrow but that's it for now!
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