Going Retro

 Well, not quite, but almost.

This is one of those silly projects I've had written down for many, many years and finally had a go at back in May. It was nothing particularly challenging or unique, but it's something that to me seemed like it would be a lot of fun.

Long, long ago in a far away place known as 2004, and having just had a ride behind narrow gauge locomotive Linda in Phenryn black (The only engine I think looks good in black!) a much younger Rob was in the shop at Portmadoc's Harbour Station choosing what would be the very first scenery kits to build for the train set. My choices at the time ended up being the Wills Weighbridge Hut and a Peco Water Tower. Honestly, not a bad selection when looking back.

I certainly built them up, as I remember both the weighbridge sitting at the side of the tracks and leaving the 'arm' on the water tower loose so I could swing it out to 'top up' and engine, but both sadly vanished with subsequent train set rebuilds and eventually packing all the OO trains away into the attic.

I'd always thought about having another go at both kits, partly for old times sake but also to see how far I've come modelling wise. Saving the water tower for another day, the weighbridge was tackled:

Very basic construction, but a few tiny embellishments help to make it look just that little bit different from all the other Wills weighbridge huts out there. Extra window bars were added by pinching an idea from one of Mr Ford's books with a similarly replaced door handle, bargeboards were taken from a Peco doors and windows pack, finials cut and shaped from 40thou square strip, the missing angled piece for the back of the canopy was cut Wills corrugated iron sheet, and for a bit of extra variety a redundant chimney stack from a Wills platelayers hut was fixed to the back (The hole for the metal smoke stack in the roof tiles being filled in).

The real challenge for me though was the painting. I'll admit I shy away from bricks: I've never quite been able to get them right. But a while back I saw a video demonstrating how to 'paint' bricks by applying a mortar colour all over and then rubbing a terracotta artists pencil over the top when dry. Having tried it, I really like it. Adding a dark wash over the top to randomly run in the mortar courses helps add some variety whilst also blending all the faces together. Perhaps next time I might try picking out odd bricks in darker colours (I did pick odd ones out here, but the wash seems to have blended them in a little too well!)

A tiny amount of drybrushing on the door, window, canopy, bargeboards and sign finished off the structure nicely. Something interesting I noted whilst building: The sign is moulded onto the building end, but the roof ridge has a flat top along the top of it for a sign. A change of opinion late in the design stage?

Going back to 2004 a Hornby GWR 'Dunster' signal box followed sooner after, perhaps another one for the 'to do again' list!