Another quick "LGB-project" - Followed by another day out

Time to pick another 'project' from the 'pile' of the used LGB-wagons I bought cheaply last year. This time it will just be a simple and quick project.

Contrary to all the other wagons I bought in this Lot, this was not heavily used or in a scruffy condition. Actually it was literally 'ready to run' as is. The only thing that was bothering me was actually the color. As I wanted a 'military look' to run it in a rake behind both my German Heeresfeldbahn diesel or British WDLR livesteam engine, I wanted a more 'greyish' look than this brown wagon. At the same time I wanted to try to keep as much as possible of it's original lettering and numbering as as it was crisp and nice (on this brown background). So to give it a solid coat of grey paint was out of the question. Instead I decided to try to give it repeatedly 'grey washes' with diluted acrylics finished by a 'black wash'. Now it's no way back... 

Frankly, this method didn't look so good after the first diluted coat. It didn't look too good after 2 second diluted coat of grey either, but I couldn't add a third coat as this would completely cover up the white lettering and numbers I wanted to shine through and keep. I decided to go directly to the blackwash, which I kept heavily diluted. It looked like it managed to make the grey stain less 'spotty':

At this point I also added tar paper made of sports-tape to the brakeman's roof to add some texture to it:

Then it was lightly drybrushed:

This project wasn't going to be so 'quick' as I expected, since the coats of paints were so thin they were flaking all the time when handling the wagon, and I had to keep covering up bare spots. This wagon would need several coats of matt varnish. I think the final result turned out just fine, and I managed what I opted for; making this originally brown wagon into a grey one and keep it's original numbering and lettering at the same time. -Keeping in mind that the grey background gives the white lettering less contrasts though.

I think this wagon is ready for service now...

- which turned out to be far sooner than expected. Just when I've applied the final coat of varnish, Heine suggested that we could spend the weekly model railway club meeting later this afternoon in his garden for a running-session and BBQ. So this wagon actually entered service before the varnish was dry.

Here are some impressions from our improvised club evening in Heine's garden:

This impressive Rätische Bahn Crocodile in 1:22,5 scale is 3D-printed in parts and assembled by one of our members:

The parcel van is also based on a prototype from RhB and 3D-printed and built by the same member:

It looks like my 'quick' LGB-project was approved by Tyra:

MOW/PWM-Train Part 2

Earlier this year I converted a LGB hatched gondola into a 'Maintenance of Way' wagon, or Permanent Way Maintenance in British terms, so my Heeresfeldbahn are able to perform emergency repairs on the line, which seems plausible for railways operating under combat conditions where railways are targetet for sabotage actions and aerial bombings etc. It had a lot of tools and sand to carry out repairs and maintenance on The Permanent Way:

What my Permanent Way Department actually lacked was some extra rails and sleepers to replace (battle-) damaged tracks. So I decided to add a load with some extra rails and sleepers to my Permanent Way Department. The sleepers and tracks were sourced from free STL-files on the Internet, 3D-printed and painted:

Instead of permanently load one of my wagons with the sleepers and rails or make a new one for this purpose, I decided to make it as a replaceable load to fit standard sized LGB-wagons. No needs for dedicated wagons for different loads. So a new 'fake' wagon floor was 3D-printed to fit and painted:

Then the 3D-printed  rails and sleepers were fitted to the new floor:

Since I was going to fit this load on a standard sized LGB wagon already in my inventory, I used the opportunity to weather another recent remodeling project which I wasn't quite satisfied with:

Then the load was fitted to the wagon:

Togheter with the hatched gondola with tools and sand, these two wagons will give my military G-scale trains capacity to perform maintenance and emergency repairs on the right of way, and I think their generic approach will make them usable behind both my German Heeresfeldbahn and British WDLR engines. 

Remodelling a Permanent Way Department wagon

Last year I  bought a couple of really cheap wagons during a combined garden railway running session and swap meet. One of them was this closed gondola made by LGB. I liked it's design as it would stand out in my rakes and I thought it looked really nice with it's (working) hatches to keep it's cargo dry. I've seen wagons like these described as permanent way department tool wagons, sand wagons or salt wagons. In Norway a similar design was used as poudrette wagons. LGB also makes one of these models labeled for carrying soap. I'm not sure what it's made specific for except to carry bulk goods that needed to be protected from rain and bad weather somehow. I decided to use mine as maintenance of way wagon loaded with both sand and some few tools for emergency repairs, which seems plausible for railways operating under combat conditions. 

At first glance it looked grey and nice and something that would fit my grey-ish military G-scale rakes. At closer inspection it was clearly that the grey paint was applied poorly, too thick, built up in thick layers and was starting to flaking and the orange original color underneath was starting to show through several places. The wagon numbers was made with a vintage Dymo label maker.

Besides, despite all the hatches could open the wagon was not painted inside (where it was still all orange):

The inside of the wagon revealed that the previous owner probably had used this car for real sand loads:

This is how the wagon looked originally by LGB before being painted by the previous owner:

Some remodelling seemed necessary to bring this back to a what it was obviously intended to be; a grey 'Maintenance of Way' wagon. First I stripped as much of the old paint I could by soaking it in rubbing alcohol for a couple of days. The thick paint was really stubborn and it didn't have the effect I wanted:

Something more powerful was needed, so I soaked it in braking fluid:

It was so effective that it even removed the factory paintings and lettering underneath that thick coat of paint. Braking fluid seems to react with plastic and heavily stains it:

Then it was given a new coat of grey:

Since wagons like this has been used for tools and sand loads, I also 3D-printed some small details like different tools and 'sand inlays' I sourced from different free stl-files found online:

Some of the tools are from an old game my wife had as I kid, which I managed to salvage before it ended in the bin:

Then it was finally time to reassemble the wagon and paint it along with all the details: 

Still with a hint of 'orange'

Then it was time to bring everything together:

The sand inlays had a really thigh fit and I experienced some paint chippings when pushing them in. I usually do my painting this size with rattle cans and didn't have any matching colors to touch up the chippings. Then I remembered I'd read a tip by Mike at his Bunkermeister blog, which I decided to try out myself. -And viola; paint chippings fixed!

Taking a grey wagon and repaint it to grey and hide all the detailing inside doesn't call for the most spectacular before and after photo:

My wife was really thrilled when she saw how I'd used her old childhood game in this project. 

This weekend I'm up for a wargame, so next blogpost will probably be a battle report or a wargame review. Perhaps trying out the 'advanced Call of Plastic' by Adam L Dobbyn? Please follow this blog and get notification when there are updates. 

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Blog PostScript

Maudlin Jack Tar mentioned in the comment-section that the 'picking up tools'-game I've used also had a British equivalent. I found that there was a game named Jack Straws, which you still can buy replacement tools for. It looks like this old British version has the exactly same box-photo as the Norwegian one: