Sunday, May 10, 2009

On the wagon - Bulk Wine Containers

One of the things I love about NZ120 is that you can whip up something from nothing in a heartbeat.

While I have a couple of larger projects I could get started on, as Rhys mentioned in one of the Railcar posts, they can bog you down unless you are making visual progress that keeps the creative juices flowing. I have to be ‘in the mood’ to make models and sometimes when the window opens and that mood strikes one just has to make the most of it, which is why I like to have a stack of ‘little’ things on my wishlist.

One such little thing was these wine tankers, which went from a rod of doweling to being painted in a few hours last night. I cut three chunks off, sanded the ends, painted them with a few coats of quick-drying acrylic white, built some bases from styrene square rodding and added etched ladders and walkways. This morning I decaled and weathered them in an hour or so and glued them to an almost-complete UK. Stop the clock.

I based mine on a plan with the old NZR logos but also have a picture of some with the late 80's Railfreight logo (above) which have have different ladder arrangements, so perhaps they were rebuilt or there were different subspecies . I went for a ‘representative’ model with the old lettering (which I think was red), end ladders and a simplified top closer to the Railfreight ones. Close enough for me.

All this is making me thirsty. Think I might fall off the wagon and partake of a glass…


P.S. I understand now that I've finished this, that plans and pictures of these containers are in the latest NZMRJ so if you have a copy you can see just how bad my memory is. I must rejoin the guild...


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