Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Colron replacement

Sean asks: I came across your Blog by pure chance I was looking for information about a replacement product for colron wood dye, for use on plastic stone kits any info would be a great help.

I'm not actually sure what Colron wood dye is supposed to do. It's a name that I know from very old model railway magazines, but I don't own a can myself.

(Incidentally, Colron still make it)

At a guess, the dye is painted onto the stone to add colour, especially in the mortar joints.



If I'm right then there is a readily available product that also does this - Citadel Agrax Earthshade. You can buy it from any Games Workshop.

An acrylic wash, you can paint it on anything that needs brown stuff in the nooks and crannies.

My experiment is on a sheet of Wills stonework. I've painted it with Humbrol 121 and picked out a few stones in variations on this. Once dry, aided by a dust of talcum powder, the Earthshade is washed over everything.

I think the results are a bit brown. Perhaps a few drops of black wash (Nulin Oil) would help. A final dry-brush with 121 would help too.

5 comments:

Huw Griffiths said...

That looks good.

Any plans to put stuff like this - and other effective "bodges" / "quick fixes" together in a BRM article (possibly even pullout cards, a supplement or a bookazine for sale at shows)?

Phil Parker said...

Bodges? You mean carefully worked out and inovative approaches to problems...

Huw Griffiths said...

I know that some people associate the term "bodging" with hastily executed, poor quality (or no quality) "workmanship" - but this isn't the only definition of the word.

You might have come across the Wikipedia page about bodging:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodging

That's right - contrary to popular opinion, real bodgers are genuine craftsmen - old school wood turners, best known for turning wooden chair legs using improvised lathes.

I'd actually been aware of this stuff for decades - I probably came across it when I was in school - but then lots of words (in lots of languages) have multiple definitions.

Anyway, what's wrong with "carefully worked out and innovative approaches to problems"?

cparkstone said...

I think I might have said to you before or perhaps it was on my own blog about "Citadel paints" I think they are brilliant and well worth a try

Unknown said...

Greetings from the far north,
if you have the time you may find it useful to look at www.greenstuffworld.com. I have just received two deliveries from them including a roller to emboss cobblestones on a suitable material -DAS -, some sheets of ABS Smooth Rock Wall on which the pattern has been embossed by rolling as the pattern is repeats every one and a half inches. I also got some fine chain, green stuff, brown stuff and a corrugating device and some soft aluminium sheet (folded not in a roll. The corrugations are two big for 4mm but may do for 7mm or larger. I also got some interesting paints including crackled paint - Mojave mudcrack. Included was a leaflet on Natural earth pigments that looked interesting. All of this for my dual gauge west coast of Scotland harbour layout which is progressing ever so slowly, is it a lack of confidence or a lack of abilty - probably both.

They do sell on ebay but the P&P can be hefty, I queried the P&P charges and got a reply in less than 24hours - they are in Spain - whereas so many of the UK suppliers I have emailed do not bother to reply at all. Kadee were also very quick to reply regarding UK dealers who might have the new 705 coupler for HOn3.

Of course you may already know of them, much of what they do is for gamers but some gaming stuff can be utilised for railway modelling, another gaming supplier is www.anyscalemodels.com who do items for 4mm scale including harbour walls, I wanted some curved harbour wall items and Stuart, the owner, suggested warming and curving wall sections but when he tried it found that getting a small radius was difficult so produced curved sections which have enabled me to create the harbour walls without right angles made of straights - gives a contrast to the mainly straight quayside track.
No connection with the firms - just a happy customer.

ldg