Thursday, March 03, 2016

Parlimentary Trains, card kit car park, airbrush and a bit of HO in BRM

Facemask

It's a busy issue of BRM for me this month. For a start, I've been given an airbrush to play around with and provide a few hints and tips for readers on the page. The airbrush is part of a reader offer for the mag and it's a nice bit of kit. Very reminiscent of the little Neo on sale about a year ago, this appears to be very similar but in a shiny white casing rather than the rubbery grey one. If you fancy having a go at spray painting, it's a far better choice than cans of air and a splatter brush.

£85 including masking tape and cleaning jar seems like a bit of a bargain to me. While not top of the range (what do you expect for that money) you could happily weather stuff with it and with care, paint at OO loco. Just mix up plenty of paint in a jar to compensate for the small paint reservoir on the airbrush and you'll be good to go. I've certainly tried worse products at a higher price. According to the box, you can airbrush cakes with it too, although best not use modelling paints for that.

We've reached the final part of the card kit saga too.

Card kit cafe

I'm finishing off the model by setting it in a scene. Full details are spread over the DVD and mag pages. The model has come out very nicely. If you fancy doing the same, one of the toughest jobs has been simplified in the last week - ready printed clear windows are on sale from Modelrailwayscenery.com. I'd have loved these when spending hours cutting out the window bars on the pre-production kit months ago.

Moving on toe new projects, I'm still working through the scales with my wagon building. While last month it might have been suggested that I'd be working in OO, there is a scale in the way that just happens to be the most popular in the world - HO.

Ho scale wagon

British HO is a very specialist topic but there is product available and the society were able to supply me with this resin and etched kit for a 16T mineral wagon. Easy to build and looking great, the resin sides are the thinnest I've ever seen. You can see light through them! Have a look at the 1:87 Society website to learn more.

Finally, I've been to see Stephen Weston and Peter Chatham from Parliamentary Trains.

Laser cut kit

It's a fascinating story taking us through the early days of the model railway industry thanks to a man who has always been interested in novel uses for production processes. They let me see how a modern laser-cut kit is produced too. On the face it it, it all looks quite simple but this is deceptive - making one kit might be simple, making a business is far harder.

British Railway Modelling website

2 comments:

Andy York said...

How disturbing to be greeted by 'The Empty Child' today!

Huw Griffiths said...

I take it the mask is part of a "show survival kit".

For anyone reading this who isn't a member of any of the model railway themed forum sites, a number of people have commented in show threads about a small number of distinctly "aromatic" visitors.

In practice, of course, these unwelcome individuals probably exist everywhere - and are very much in the minority at shows of any kind.

Unfortunately though, when they are encountered, they do tend to be rather noticeable ...