Mid-year update

I realised the other day that I haven't had an update in a few months, so the blog is due for some fresh content. The blog has always been mainly a record for me to jot down how I did things, so that when I try to replicate them in future I can follow what past me did. That's the plan at least. In that regard, expect that updates here are going to be fewer and less often, and the bulk of my involvement in model railways will be in the physical world, or through Facebook.

Whilst this isn't the most current picture of Mount Wilson, here's where scenery got up to by about mid-May. Everywhere to the left of the station and coal loader has received the initial cover of dirt, grass, trees and weeds. I need to go back over the rear sections to build up the underbrush of the bushland.

I managed to get the station up to a level to get the roof on, but have inadvertently set the pitch of the awning too low. I haven't puttied the joins or finished painting the barge boards, but you get the idea of what this will look like once complete from this image. Drainpipes to come too.

I also had a few spare hours to have a go at some additional rollingstock weathering, basically following James McInerney's article about quick weathering of wheels and bogies from the February AMRM. First up was an On Track Models LLV, which took the Bragdon's powders and isopropyl alcohol that I used to seal it (as per the article) quite well.

The Auscision JLXs I tried it with however were a different story. Here's three in various stages of weathering. From left to right, no weathering, bogies only, and the last one has had bogies and the body done.

It looks passable, but when I focussed a little closer on the first JLX that I completed, there seems to be something going on with the Iso that I'm adding at the end. I'm getting this white residue colour, as per a previous blog post I made about weathering some of the RACE containers.

You can start to see the white colour coming up in the image I've taken of the LLV and JLX drying. Both received the exact same quick spray of iso straight from the bottle, yet the LLV isn't showing this pattern for whatever reason.

Going back even further in the process, the right-hand side of the JLX has received the weathered brown Bragdon's powder, and the left is as-yet untouched. 

Weird. I might try spraying it from the airbrush at a very low pressure to see if that produces a finer mist. Currently, I've just gone over the roof with a light application of the black to try to tie it in a little more. It looks ok, but to my eyes it still looks like a patch job. Perhaps that's effective weathering itself!

I also recently had the opportunity to run a train on Bethungra. Thanks go both to Steven Pracy who organised for the NSW Diesel Era Modellers to run their trains on the EMRC's layout, and to my wife for watching the boy for us for an afternoon on her day off.

It was nice to give 42106 a run on Bethungra. Here it is at the southern end of Bethungra spiral with an interstate train that I've been building up to run on a future Blue Mountains layout. One day.

SDS models' upcoming 81 with DCC sound was also being put through it's paces on the day. The sound file sounds amazing and to say I followed it around the layout a handful of times would be an understatement. If you were hesitating buying one I would get an order in right now - you will regret missing out.

A short update but plenty more to follow in the next few months.

If you read this and find any of it useful, please feel free to leave a comment. The blog format doesn't lend itself to engagement as much as other social media platforms, but it's nice to see who's getting value out of my ramblings to the wind sometimes.

Cheers,
Ben