All steam engines need coal, even those that are models powered by electricity. The traditional method used since Frank Hornby was in short trousers has been to take a lump of real coal, hit it with a hammer and glue the results of this into the tender/wagon/bunker as required.
Real coal isn’t a bad approximation for model coal but I and many others feel it doesn’t quite do the job. I think it’s probably too black or too grainy compared to seeing the stuff at a distance - hence my models are fuelled by something from my rapidly emptying packet of fake coal.
I’m using an American product picked up at a show years ago but think that Greenscene do something very similar. It’s got the sheen that real coal has but isn’t quite as black. It’s also a good deal cleaner to work with.
In use all you do is pour the stuff into the tender and then fix in place with a watered down PVA mix applied using a pipette. The mix is roughly 50/50 PVA/water with a couple of drops of washing up liquid to break the surface tension and allow the liquid to flow through the load properly. Too much washing up liquid though and you get bubbles which ruin the effect so be stingy with it.
Once dry I ran a bit of thinned matt black of the mound to accentuate the shadows and hide any PVA that hadn’t dried clear. A little dry brushing with metalcote gunmetal and gloss black made things even better. A finishing touch was to dust it with black powder paint to give the slightly dusty look of real coal.
No comments:
Post a Comment