Got a new airbrush

I'm in the USA for two weeks on business and took some time out to visit a hobby shop in St. Charles Missouri, a neighbouring district of St. Louis. Mark Twain Hobbies have a wide range of modelling goodies for radio controlled cars, boats and planes to plastic kits and rail road supplies.
I was looking at all of the US railroading stock and contemplating buying another loco' when I wandered into the tooling section and struck gold - an Iwata Eclipse HP-CS airbrush for $128 - about £81. The UK RRP is about £137!---------------Sold to the Limey.

I can't wait to get home and try it out before I do a bit of weathering on two O guage loco's some of the AMRC members have asked me to weather for them.

Some more examples of my weathering

Weathered Rudd and SAA wagons

I had another afternoon of weathering today and tried something new. I had a small bottle of weathering powder that I bought years ago in Toulouse but never really got to grips with. I had airbrush weathered a Hornby Rudd wagon in Dutch livery and a Bachmann SAA scrap wagon but they needed a little bit more to give them more texture and authenticity - rust!
The powder is a dark rust shade and applies well either as a dry powder or mixed with acrylic thinners and painted on. According to the label it can also be airbrushed. For the Rudd though I used it dry and it adhered well to the airbrush applied weathering giving quited a realistic shade and texture that can be varied with the amount of powder applied.
With the SAA wagon I needed to mix it into a wash so that the recesses of the individual panels would be covered before rubbing the excess off with a cotton bud - lots of cotton buds! I used the dry powder after this to tone down the wagon's original livery.

The inside of the wagon was weathered previously with Scenic Rust but I am still in two minds about the finish produced with this product. Here I used the the dry powder application again and it seems to have improved the look. A final brush down all over with an old toothbrush removed any excess weathering powder.

Slovenske železnice, SŽ

I got back from Ljubljana last week and spent an afternoon drinking beer at the the Station Bar.


Ljubljana Railway Station



There is also a Railway Museum in the former roundhouse depot not far from the town centre and a bit tricky to find but worth the effort. 

VBA/VAA vans

My Bachmann VBA and VAA vans are nearly finished now that I have recieved the explosive hazmat transfers I ordered from B.W. Models. I put the transfers on last night and all that is left is a final bit of toning down and they are done.

I was inspired by an article in Rail Express Modeller about rail transported explosives and thought that this would be a relatively easy project to do - not. I had no luck with the usual transfer makers and just by chance I stumbled upon B.W. Models' website after several years and discovered that they do a hazmat decal sheet with the transfers I was looking for.
 http://www.bwmodels.co.uk/index.asp?pageid=296102 DC 24 if any one is interested.
I also bought a couple of white metal kits for use on a military train I am working on.

Innsbruck Haupfbahnhof

I spent a few days in Innsbruck Austria this month. I had a few hours spare before my flight home and as all the shops were shut for a public holiday I didn't get the chance to visit Rainer model shop so I went to the main railway station instead - it's a modern station and the surrounding scenery is quite spectacular.

While I was there a motorail service from Milan arrived. A couple of car carrier wagons were uncoupled and shunted into a bay platform just as the owners arrived from alighting at another platform.

And while all the wagons are uncoupled there is a man to wash the drivers windows!

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ravenproject11&aq=f