O Gauge on a budget

A good friend of mine at the railway club had some old O gauge stock given to him some time ago. He recently told me he had 'done a bit of weathering' and what did I think? This 'bit of weathering' was so good I took the following pictures during our running evening and asked him for an article to accompany them. 

It didn't end there though he also inherited a couple of white metal bogies and a chassis frame which we identified  as parts of an old Queen Mary brake van kit. This came back to the club as 'a basic scratch build', which took the drawings for me to spot descrepancies the prototype. This is his article:

"The GW open wagon is scratchbuilt on a Webster chassis. The Queen Mary is scratchbuilt using commercial bogies – make unknown. The vans are kits and the mineral wagons a mix of kits and Triang Big-Big train. The Triangs had the W irons drilled and filed out and the tie bar between the axle boxes removed. Metal wheels were also added.

The scratchbuilt wagon and the Queen Mary were built using 1mm ply (from Mick Charles Models) and card for the open wagon metalwork. These two were sprayed with grey undercoat aerosol and brush painted with Fox transfers added.

The mineral wagons were also sprayed with a grey primer then brush painted all over with a rust colour. This was followed by stippling on Railmatch frame dirt mixed with talcum powder to give a rust texture in random areas but where corrosion is likely to occur. The rust colour was not totally dry so some mixing of the colours occurred. This treatment was also applied to the interior with the darker colour (and plenty of talc) used more at the bottom of the panels, blending to a lighter colour at the top. The top edge is mostly a dark colour, again with plenty of talc. Next I applied Maskol in random areas on the outside and top edge where the rust was to show through. I found it better to apply the Maskol thickly, as although it took longer to dry it was easier to remove. Once dry the model was brush  painted with BR freight grey, all the markings added and the chassis painted with Railmatch weathered black.  When dry the Maskol was peeled away and a final weathering applied to tone down the grey and reduce the contrast between the two areas. This was achieved dry brushing with various paints  and weathering powders. The loads are builders sand and limestone roof chippings on a piece of shaped softboard fixed with PVA."

I hope you were as impressed with my friends rolling stock as I was. To me it clearly shows what can be done with basic materials and old rolling stock. Some would say it doesn't have the fine detail, or the under frame might not be quite right but to me they are far more realistic than a perfectly accurate set of immaculate wagons. And certainly a lot cheaper than £100+ O Guage Queen Mary kit.