I masked the inside of the wagon body and inverted it on a block for spraying. Before that, though, I cleaned the brass rivet heads with thinners and then touched them in with some etch primer (sprayed into a bottle lid).
I gave it a couple of coats of Halfords acrylic grey primer to match my other rolling stock (I gather from Raif thet the original on the Ffestiniog railway is all black) and then left it in the warm for an hour or so before lightly rubbing down with 600 grade wet and dry (used dry). A dust off and then two more coats.
After leaving all overnight to dry, I stained the inside with an acrylic wash of brown, black and white. Raif suggests dilute indian ink and with hindsight I should have used more black in the wash. it is going to be weathered a bit though, so no matter.
Next was painting the "ironwork" black with black, water based acrylic paint. When that was dry - in a few minutes - I fitted the rings as per instructions.
It was then a matter of choosing which number to use. Raif provides a choice of three which are laser cut on laminated, white on black acrylic. The laser burns off the white - clever stuff!
If I were building a rake of these I might ask nicely if I might commission some bespoke numbers. In the end, I chose 35 and fixed these with double sided tape so I can change my mind!
Finally I modified one of the couplings to take the chain and hook beneath as this will link nicely to my Accucraft Quarry Hunslet.
Now it just needs some weathering and perhaps some weight underneath.....
But before that happens, here it is with the Jurassic Quarrymens' coach (also a Raif Copley designed kit) and my Accucraft Quarry Hunslet.
The figures are, of course, by Rob Bennett!
The coupling height is spot on for the Hunslet:
Weathering
I removed the underframe(so easy!!) and then airbrushed it with a rusty, dusty brown. I use the cheapest bottom feed airbrush that I got free with a compressor. The paints are revel acrylics (in the square tubs). Lots of thin coats, dring between coats in front of the fan heater. Then I touched in the axleboxes with some slightly different rust mix. I'm not sure I can see it now, but I know it is there!
The wagon body just got some light dusting coats of the rust/dust mix to make it blend in with the other stock. It gives it a warm look I think. I dabbed a bit of rust colour round some of the rivets too.The buffers and couplings have just has a coat of straight, dark brown for now as I may change them. Below you can see the finished (?) wagon.
As I mentioned above, the inside looked a bit neat and brown, so I roughed it up by using coarse sandpaper in long strokes to give a sort of grain. Then a light grey wash, dabbed off with kitchen towel. Finally a bit of dark grey, dry brushed. Now it looks like this:
The Next Three Wagons
Well i couldn't just have one of these and so I ordered three more! Raif has now cut the end of the planks so they show up better on the side of the wagon. He has also had problems with sourcing the centre buffer coupling. These have significantly increased in price and to offset this, he has switched from the pricey 3/64" rivets to dressmakers' pins. The holes are smaller so that they fit well.
However, I wanted my four wagons to match so I sourced the rivets from Maidstone Engineering. Fifty will do one wagon with 6 spares for droppages! Here you can see the difference and the plank ends:
The shortage of buffers was not a problem to me as all my other stock has simple dumb buffers. I cut and shaped these from some modelling wood I had using the bench linisher. A curve is drawn with the bottom of a pot and it is then a few seconds to shape it (mind the fingers and I wore a mask as the dust was very unpleasant. I drilled them for some 4mm bolts and shaped some panel pins for hooks (heat to red heat for an easy bend). Then some of my usual steel strip for the face, curbed and drilled for two rivets. Plasticard or thin ply would have been easier!
Here is one being tried out for size:
It is a bit of a pain that the hook needs to go where the bolt runs through, but I drilled through both and the shank of the hook secures the bolt and stops it from turning. Incidentally, I drilled the hole for the bolt undersize so that it screws in.
Here it is painted and weathered a little by airbrushing with a wash of mostly Revell Leather Brown acrylic with some Humbrol matt varnish. I used 50% bio-ethanol and water to make it quick drying.
I weathered the underframes and wheels off the wagon as they need quite a bit. I found that a grain of Blutac held them together and, in fact, I left it there when fitting them to the wagon as it made for a firmer fit. They can still be easily removed to change gauge.
And here they are finished: