Mucking It Up

Our BR Sulzer Type 2 - or Class 24 as most of us probably call them -  is one of the staples of our Cambrian fleet on Minffordd.

It's a reliable, smooth runner, with a very nice sound file, too.

The only niggle is that until now it's been far too obviously clean.  

Too obviously 'out of the box'.

In the last few months I've been experimenting with weathering, which was quite a brave step for me because I was always fearful of ruining good models with incompetent attempts to dirty them up.

I do have access to airbrushes, but I've yet to use one, and so I've been having a go with dry brushing with acrylics instead.

I'm very aware my efforts bear no comparison whatsoever with what modellers blessed with much greater artistic talent are able to achieve, but I think I've at least succeeded in making them look as if they've got a few miles on the clock.

On the 24 I always thought the thing which really stood out like a sore thumb was that spotlessly clean, light grey roof.

From pictures I've found it seems they managed to keep the flanks looking reasonably clean most of the time.

We still have a number of locos in the steam fleet which also need some attention - in particular the Collett Goods and the Standard 2MT - but I feel they are less well suited to a dry brushing approach and it might be that I need to get some lessons in spraying, or save up to pay someone to do them properly.

Either way, it's unlikely to get done before the Glasgow show at the end of this month, so please avert your eyes if you don't care much for shiny steam engines.