Airbrush Cleaning for Beginners

by Andy Small

A lot has been written by very eminent modellers on the subject of airbrushing, and I feel the two main obstacles newcomers are put off by are paint mixing and airbrush cleaning.

A decent airbrush is a well-designed piece of equipment with fine tolerances and as such will not work well if not kept clean.

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Tutorials on Weathering

by Andy Small

 

Messing with an 8 planker.

Some basic weathering. I thought a good place to start would be one of Dapol’s Rose Smith O gauge 8 plank wagons.

The intention was to produce a wagon that had been worked hard and been repaired (at least once).

 

Naked & Unloved

So the next item up in the workshop is an O Gauge 5 plank wagon in a plain wood finish.

From the box this wagon looks pristine & has a satin/shiny look about it, so the aim is to give this piece of rolling stock a very unloved and undecorated appearance.

 

Weathering a Class 73 Locomotive

 Following on from the 8 plank wagon I thought I would change scale and opt for a loco. So next on the list was an ED or Class 73 in modern terms.

These locos worked alongside steam in the early years and having a diesel engine they produced a fair amount of exhaust fumes when working in this mode.
So the aim was to produce a careworn look that needed the washers.

 

Dapol Class 33 in N Gauge

This particular loco was built in July 1960 as D6514, renumbered in December 1973, & withdrawn from BR service in February 1997. The loco is currently preserved.

I decided to give the loco a more day to day appearance using a mixture of weathering techniques & process.

 

Terrier Time

I thought it was time to turn my attentions to one of the excellent O Gauge Terriers. So here we have one In BR Black #32636.

 

Weathering steam locomotives is always a subjective topic, too dirty, too clean and of course what time period do you want to reproduce? I remember steam from the late sixties and they were utterly filthy. However this is often too much for most modellers / collectors so I aim to reproduce a loco that has been maintained, has worked hard but seen “better days”.