About Me

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London, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
A mythical beast - a female wargamer! I got back into wargaming in the summer of 2011 after a very, very long break and haven't looked back since. I must admit that I seem to be more of a painter/collector than a gamer, but do hope to correct that at some point in the near future. My gaming interests span the ages, from the "Biblical" era all the way through to the far future. I enjoy games of all sizes, from a handful of figures up to major battles (see my megalomaniacally sized Choson Korean and Russian Seven Years War armies).

Tuesday, 25 August 2015

Road-Sweeper Day Five

I did manage to get some work done today on the road-sweeper and the test cars.

Road-Sweeper

After breakfast this morning, I airbrushed the vehicle with a mix of VMA Light Rust and VMA Hull Red (roughly 3:1). I then set it aside for a few hours, to allow the paint to dry and cure. At lunchtime I dry-brushed heavily over the rust colour with VMC Natural Steel. Earlier this evening I airbrushed a protective coat of Klear over the whole vehicle. This will provide the basecoat for the "chipping".

Pics taken pre-Klear:

Rust spray:


Dry-brushed:



I was intending to use the salt method for the chipping, rather than the hairspray method, but now I'm unsure. I've decided to do a test to compare the two methods. Naturally, I don't want to do that on this model, so I've drilled out the rivets on one of the many diecasts in my collection. I also tapped the rivet posts to take 2mm screws.


The holder attached to the vehicle is one of a batch I made up the other day. I'd seen them used by someone on YouTube and realised they would be much handier than the blue-tac-on-top-of-dropper-bottle I have been using. It consists of a 20cm length of 4.5mm styrene rod glued into an electrical connector with epoxy. The blade of the connector has had its hole enlarged to take 2mm screws, then bent at an angle.

Close-up pic
I'll do the comparison test tomorrow - I don't have any hairspray, so I'll need to buy some.


Test Cars

Having let the pearlescent gold coat dry and cure overnight, I added the first transparent coats this morning. These were Brite Yellow and Caribbean Blue.


The Brite Yellow gives a very nice brass/burnished gold look.


The Caribbean Blue didn't seem to want to cover the gold very well at first. And then I noticed that I had the pressure set much higher than yesterday. D'oh! When I turned the pressure down it seemed to work much better. I'm pretty sure the blue will work better over silver than it does over gold (they didn't have the silver in stock yesterday).


As I had a bit of dead-time this morning, I decided to see what Hotwheels the Sainsburys in Tottenham had. The only problem was, that when I got there it wasn't a Sainsburys any more - it's now a DIY store. Thinking my trip had been wasted, I headed back towards the bus stop to go home. While I was waiting for the lights to change so I could cross a side road, I happened to look left and what did I see? The new Sainsburys! I popped in and had a look, found the relevant aisle and found one car that I was after. I also did some household shopping while I was there.

The "Enforcer":




That takes my count to 23 new car models; 1 left on my allowance.

"Hang on, what's that on the left of the top pic?"

Drat! You've caught me out.



Yes, another Flashfire 5 Pack. There were actually two on the shelves, but I restrained myself and just bought one. These will be kept as they are rather than used for custom paint jobs. Well, the hotrod might get used for the "wastelands" project, but the other 4 will stay as they are.

That's all for now folks!


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8 comments:

  1. DeanM25 August 2015 at 23:13

    Serious work going on in the garage, Tamsin. Looks like a real automotive shop! :)

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  2. styx25 August 2015 at 23:27

    Great work!

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  3. The Kiwi26 August 2015 at 01:13

    Custom Culture Koolness. Nice! Keeping busy in the chop shop!

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  4. Mallius Vane26 August 2015 at 08:13

    Road Sweeper is looking good! And love the new shiny colours!

    So how many cars do you have now? Would be good to see them all together!

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  5. Michael Awdry26 August 2015 at 08:28

    I'm loving the road sweeper, really starting to take on a 'character' now. So that must be target reached now?

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  6. Paul´s Bods26 August 2015 at 08:49

    Clever idea to use the rivet post to attach the holder.
    I hope me mentioning the hairspray method didn´t cause the uncertainty :-/
    I´ve never heard of the salt method..I can´t imagine how it works.. Hairspray, spray it on but salt? wash/brush diluted salt on? I won´t look it up but tomorrow have a look here :-D

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  7. colinmnash26 August 2015 at 10:01

    More excellent progress! I'm with Gordon - any chance of a group shot?

    Are you going to have to make a multi-storey car park as terrain or storage?! :)

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  8. TamsinP26 August 2015 at 15:38

    @ Dean - yup, lots going on :)

    @ Styx - cheers! :)

    @ Brendon - I certainly am keeping busy :)

    @ Gordon - thanks. Sadly, I don't have room on my workbench to show them all off together ;)

    @ Michael A - cheers. It definitely has a certain personality to it. What target do you mean? :)

    @ Paul - your guess isn't far off. You prep as you would for hairspray; brush a small amount of water onto the model where you want the chipping to occur, sprinkle salt over; tap the model to remove excess; let the salt dry to form a crust; then do exactly as you would for the hairspray technique.

    @ cmnash - as I said in my reply to Gordon, I don't really have the space to show them all together ;)
    As for the multi-storey carpark...I don't think so :)

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