Garden Railway Forum

Grant I would be grateful one day if yoy could do a post about how you painted and weathered your locos as I want mine to look just like yours!

Lovely pictures especially the third one. I don't see the fence behind just a railway running through a beautiful setting. Just perfect!

Thanks Bazzer, unfortunately all I see in that pic. is the fence. They are the bane of my life for photos of the railway.
Tom wrote

I would be grateful one day if you could do a post about how you painted and weathered your locos as I want mine to look just like yours!

Certainly happy to give it a go Tom, but please keep reminding me, memory span of minutes at the moment.
Grant.

Hi Grant,

Don't forget, can you do a post about how you went about painting your locos please

Great shots again, Grant. Your photos always seem to be so well lit. Is that good timing on your part, or is the light in your part of the world always just right?

Rik

Rik said,

Your photos always seem to be so well lit.

It's just natural Australian light Rik, and with the recent removal of trees (weeds) with the prospect of more, shade is getting a bit hard to come by this summer.
Grant.

After clearing some winter growth, the track repair gang was out replacing sleepers in some places. Unfortunately due to Chinese Quality control (or complete lack of it) when I purchased my bulk track for the layout it transpired that it was of the batch that had very poor UV resistance (all may be like this, nobody seems to know) so after 10 years in Australian UV it was time to replace the badly affected areas. The works train with full occupation of the line proceeding to the job site with new sleeper panels. The first section showing a sleeper panel that was undercoated and painted as an experiment.
Don't think I will continue with this, if the new sleepers last another 10 years I'll be happy. This shows the new sleepers on the left, and the degraded ones to the right.
They don't need to be replaced as they are still keeping the track in gauge, but if touched
or moved they tend to break. It's only happened where they are in full sunlight, something we have quite a bit of down here.
Grant.

Hi Grant, looks ok, can’t you let the bush’s grow up and around the track and have like a living tunnel, then you could have shade and no full sun

That first shot is beautiful. It'll be a long time before Fairway suffers from UV problems...

It will be even longer up here in Lancashire lol..

Lovely pictures

Rod said,

can’t you let the bush’s grow up and around the track and have like a living tunnel,

Rod, the tunnel mouth is actually immediately to the left of the last pic.( shadow of it bottom left) It used to be covered by a large Possum Banksia bush, but we lost that last autumn.
Grant.

Another reminder Grant about that painting guide of your live steam locos...

Those old sleepers sure do look degraded. I sometimes wish I had a problem with excess sunshine. At the moment I'm waiting for a couple of days where the temperature rises above freezing so I can do some concreting.

Rik

Great pictures Grant. Lovely to see work being done - I can watch it all day!

Andrew

Rik, I'd gladly do a swap today.
35deg. with promise of very heavy rains later and over the next couple of days, and summer starts tomorrow.
Someone once said "you can't legislate the seasons"
Grant.

Tom Tom said

Another reminder Grant about that painting guide of your live steam locos...

Thanks for the reminder Tom, I was planning on setting this all down, then transcribing it to here. That didn't work, so I'm just going to waffle on (as usual), probably over a few posts.
Firstly I don't profess to be any expert, and I'm going to say things that will shock the purists, but hopefully might dispel some of the tensions that a newcomer might suffer when considering painting and weathering a loco. First some basics.

Point 1. I spray most things on a piece of wood clamped in the vice with a 12" disc of 1/4"ply screwed on one end as a turntable. It has 2x 3" nails in the side to hold my airbrush. the bench is covered in sawdust, steel dust and all the junk from my model making. I spray high gloss (generally on cars) matts and semi gloss in these conditions. This is not a recommendation as to how to do it, more indicating that a newby should not be put off for a lack of somewhere to spray a model.

Point 2. This one is a little hard to explain, but any spray gun puts out a pattern consisting of a wet central pattern of full colour surrounded by a larger area of paint that although colouring the surface has not wet out. The following might explain. It is the dense centre section that the next pass of the gun must come up to, and overlap slightly. failing to do this results in a pinholed finish that gets imbedded with dirt and looks blotchy. Taking ones head slightly to the side will generally show this fully wetted area and where the next pass will be.

Point 3. When spraying with any sort of equipment, the gun charged with paint MUST be started OFF the job. You pull the trigger just off the job and commence your sweep, and continue until just off the job at the other end. This allows the gun to establish its pattern fully before coming onto the job and allows a clean unaltered paint flow until off the job at the other end. This is not a waste of paint, but a basic spraying practice that will become second nature with practice.
That's some very basic points over with, apologies to those with more experience, to be continued>
Grant.

LNR wrote: ↑Wed Nov 29, 2017 12:14 pm Rod said,

can’t you let the bush’s grow up and around the track and have like a living tunnel,

Rod, the tunnel mouth is actually immediately to the left of the last pic.( shadow of it bottom left) It used to be covered by a large Possum Banksia bush, but we lost that last autumn.
Grant.

That’s a real shame Grant, no chance of getting another one to grow there again.

Looking for a change from boats and clearing up the line after winter, got the S&T branch out of their shed to do some maintenance. Removed the floor of the box to have access to the locking room underneath, dusted, oiled and checked linkages, replaced floor then oiled quadrant plates of the levers. Then into the yard to check, grease, and oil the rodding guides and bell cranks. Adjusted one cable to no.3 roads dwarf to get it back on its horizontal stop. Rodding and other gear is looking like its been there a few years now, not so clean.
Grant.

LNR wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2017 5:06 am
Rodding and other gear is looking like its been there a few years now, not so clean.

Yes, It does look extremely prototypical now, lovely. Needs a second look to realise its a model.
Envy you the weather to be able to get out and do it, I have a complete station and some line side fencing waiting to be installed!