Wow… where did January go? It only seems 5 minutes ago that I was looking forward to Christmas and the usual rounds of eating and drinking and family get togethers…blink and we were at New Year, blink again and January had come and gone!! To be fair I had work commitments in January and the travel to and from where my contract was just about wore me out - which left very little time at all for modelling activities. Still now that contract has finished I have a bit of time to get back into the mass of projects I have on the go - so what better way to start than having a SPA weekend!!?? This, however, isn't the sort which involves towel robes, steam baths and detoxing, but instead utilises a new model from a new company that modellers have wanted for a while.
The company - FTG (Filling The Gap) models aims to produce wagons that the mainstream companies will probably never replicate - either because of limited interest or the fact that most of them seem to be way off fulfilling their current production models, let alone planning for new ones. This will hopefully be the first of many wagons from this company that literally do 'fill the gap' and allow you to make up realistic rakes of stock without resorting to the full 'build from a kit' approach. The model isn't perfect - but then what model is - the couplings being the main issue - they are too far back. That said I'm changing them to scale 3 link instanter couplings so it doesn't affect me in the slightest.
So lets look at it in a bit more detail; the first round of releases of the SPA consists of 2 plain Railfreight and 2 Cardiff Rodmill liveried wagons, all with different running numbers. I decided to purchase the 2 plain Railfreight examples to run in some of the steel train rakes that I will be producing.
They come with a removable cradle that represents the wooden based version in the real wagon - these were always in a bit of a state so hopefully I can weather them accurately to represent this. The way they are made means the wagon can take steel or wire coils - or they can be removed completely so as to enable you to put in whatever you want load wise.
Some of the detailing on the SPA is a little crude/basic but once they are weathered up and detailed I think they will look great - just wish I had purchased a few more as they are now pretty much sold out! Guess I will have to wait for the next batch to be released.
First thin I did was to whip the wheel sets out and paint them and the underframe with my weathering base coat of Precision Paints frame dirt. I also fitted the wheel sets with Colin Craig brake disc etches which really helps lift the realism of any wagon. I also fitted the hooks for my scale 3 links and Shawplan cast air brake pipes at each end.
Once this was done and dry, I gave the interior its first weathering base coat of Precision Paints Dark Rust. This will have a number of dirt and rust washes applied to help bring out the worn interior. Weathering powders will also be used. I'm still debating what to load it with yet - I'd like to use some of the loads from the Duha range, but the particular one I want is proving hard to find.
So thats where this little weekend project has got to at the moment. Since taking these pictures I've also painted the buffer shafts with a chrome paint - the next stage will be the start of weathering the exterior - I just have to decide how 'used' I want these to look.
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