The gravel was painted with Tamiya buff. The ties were hand painted Tamiya's dark red/brown. I then applied a dark black wash which helped blend the ties to the roadbed and hide and goofs from hand painting the ties (I didn't worry about getting a real sharp edge between the buff and the ties).

-G-

thanks Bruce, i can't wait to see it either hahaha! track season just started at my high school, so now work is limited to weekends only.

Jeff- i might wind up using that method. i was thinking spray the gravel and then use microsol company's liquid mask to paint the gravel around each tie, yes all 4215843532945 trillion of them, tape off the rest and spray the ties brown n then follow up with washes n stuff. now very time efficient, but i hope it might work

just what ive been up to: i paitned the boiler, cabin, roof, tender, pistons and wind deflecters panzergrau, a mix of 70-80% tamiya dark grey to 20-30% tamiya flat blue. after that was mixed, i mixd in tamiya flat white which probably wound up being around 50% of the mixture. i'm rather happy with the outcome.

and then i started the taping off so i can spray the yellow camo stripes. im pleased with how these have been coming out too. what you see here is five consecutive hours of taping, taping, taping! unfortunately the kit's painting instructions only came with 2 views of the locomotive i am building- one of the right side and one of the front. for the left, top and back, i can to call upon my creative inititive. i did my best to create a design that i thought was "in character" for the camo scheme shown in the picture. let me know what you think!

these designs were copied as best as possible from the painting diagram supplied in the kit:

these are shots of what i had to make up. i am particularly happy with the top deck of the tender car

camo scheme:

Here it´s coming! Nice work, Andrew, and hard one too, I´d say. Keep posting.
Libor

Very sharp painting. Keep up the good work and keep the pictures coming.

Regards,
Pascal

hi guys thanks for the comments. now that i'm getting into the weathering stages, i have a few questions.

1st, i read that there would hav been water spots in some places, especially around the water hatches on the tender. are water spots just actual puddles of water or are they discolored spots of base color and how could i make this affect??

2nd, i read there would be spilled sand around the sander box...but what is the sander box? is it that thing on top of the boiler that connects to the sand lines?

3rd, where is the steam generator that makes power for the lights etc?

4th, what are the safety poppet valves and where are they?

any answers/help are welcome!

That is one cool looking camo scheme, wish I had the patience for all that masking. Top notch, can't wait to see both hitched together. Keep posting.

Rob

Hi Andrew,
For water spots I use liquid from Mig production, someone can use also gloss varnish, many guides can be found in model forums. Sand boxes are up on the sides of the boiler, like you have mentioned, steam generator on the top of the boiler just behind the cabin (with the pipe)

poppet valves on top of the cylindres

My English is too bad to explain that right, use this link to find more
steam engine
cheers
Libor

thanks everyone!

libor, thanks for the info and the link. also don't worry about ur english, it's fine. way better than my french which iv been taking in school for years

Andrew,

Maybe this is a usefull link:
http://www.trainsahead.com/weathering_steam_locomotives.htm

Watermarks/spots are cause by water drying and leaving behind white circles due to the minerals present in water (e.g. calcium).

Libor is right in all his answers except for one, I don't know the precise location, but the safety relief valves are located on top of the boiler, usually somewhere close in front of the driver cabin. I don't have any pictures present at the moment to determine the precise location.
They are placed high-up because when they pop they make an awfull lot of noice and could potentially cause hearing damage or even rupture eardrums.
They will never be located low (cylinder height), I know because I deal a lot with these types of valves in my daily job and I used to drive model steam trains (scale 1/6).
These valves are used to safeguard against overpressure in the boiler (If this is to short an explanation I'm happy to elaborate)

The cylinders release steam during driving but this is not a safety device but normal due to the way the cylinder and valving around it work.

Regards,
Pascal

Hi Pascal,
I think I am even right about the poppet valves {that was the question}, if my dictionary is exact, what I suppose is. Valve — controls the supply of steam to the cylinders, timing is synchronised by the valve gear connect to the drivers. Steam locomotives can have slide valves, piston valves or poppet valves.
Safety valves, and you are right about them, are on top of the cylinder, those two valves between the steam generator and the steam dome {closer to the generator}. I hope this is better explanation now. Sometimes I find very hard to get the right word in English, if for example VALVE can be thousand different things.
Regards
Libor

Libor,

I thought it was a mix-up of words, becasue when safety valves go off they are said to "pop". But if the valves you describe are meant by this than I stand corrected and you are right.
And also the word safety is confusing here as I wrote above it is a normal operation and not a safety device. Are they not simply called popped valves, without "safety"? I'm not at home in the english wording for steam engine parts, my education was in Dutch.

Regards,
Pascal

progress: black/brown oil wash for the locomotive after decals then little chipping. last night i painted the 2 rail cars that the gun sits on. the gun is also painted. the gun is grey, while the rail cars are a darker blue-ish grey. hopefully my pictures show the color difference well.

Good progress, Andrew,
its coming along. Looking for more
Libor

Nice work so far...

One question didn't the diesel locomotives hull the morser and leopold??? I think i read it somewhere...or is it posible to steam locomotive hull morser/leopold....

yep, diesel locomotives pulled them into and out of the tunnels where they were kept when the batteries were in use. steam locomotives were used to pull the bettery into position, like taking it from the krupp factory to france, or from france to italy or the ussr

Thx for the answer, i didn't know that...very usefull information...

i was thinking about how im gonna paint the railway bed. i was thinking maybe put buff and brown paint in the paint jar on my airbrush, but not mixed, so that when it sprays, the color wont b so monotonous, but broken up and different in places. would that even work? thanks

hi guys im just starting to continue work again after maybe 2 months off, one of which i spent in africa doing community service work.

just a little progress. i started water marks on the tender, but i'm not sure about them. are they too white? too many? not enough? too small? too big?



here's just a shot of the boiler. the whole thing just looks too light and clean. i really want a cruddy beat up locomotive and tender but im stuck as what else to do, beides adding soot on top from the smoke stack,


btw im going to repaint the undercarriage of the locomotive and tender black. i dont like the brown color

noooo! the brown looks great
real good work so far

Good to see you back, Andrew. The ballast is most in various shades of grey. Some brown colour will be located near the tracks, that is actually the rust falling down. Hope that can help.



Good way is to paint lighter and darker spots here and there until the whole thing is painted.
Cheers
Libor

thanks James, and Libor. here's a pic of the gun with it's decals- i did them 2 months ago- and some washes which i have been working on the past couple of days. i painted the ballast a tannish color 2 months ago and i almost finished hand painting the ties so i dont think i'll be repainting it grey- maybe just many, many filters and washes. more pictures soon.