Let's Get Involved!
Let's Get Involved!
Adjust your Deltic Lights
We've noticed that one of our complex lighting functions on our Class 55 Deltics is not quite correct. However, we have a very simple fix to sort that out for you. Here's how you do it...
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Fitting your Mk2 Coaches with Curtains
Take your new Accurascale Mk2 coaches to a whole new level of realism! Using the simple guide below, we'll show you how to quickly and easily install the supplied curtains to your coaches for maximum results, all you'll need is some glue and a craft knife! Step one: Unclip the body via four clips, two located on each side just next to the bogies. Their location is indicated in the following two photos. Step two: Find the plastic sheet with printed curtains from inside the carriage box. Then cut the curtains out of the acetate sheet using a craft knife or scissors, cutting down the black lines on each side of the curtains. Step three: Once you have prepared the curtains, test fit before adding the glue to make sure they fit where you'd like to position them. Once happy spread a thin line of PVA or similar glue along the edges. Step four: Place the curtain section over the desired window and firmly press and hold with a finger. After a few seconds, the glue should be tacky enough to hold the curtain in place. Step five: Turn the body over and check that the curtains are straight with no glue is visible on the window. Fit the curtains to one side of the coach and allow to dry. Apply the other side and allow to dry. Once happy, let the glue dry overnight before reassembly. Once both sides are fully dry you can clip the body back in place and enjoy.
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Let's Get Involved - Weathering BR 21T MDO Mineral Wagons With Alex Roughsedge
Welcome to another of our "Let's Get Involved" series of how-to modelling guides featuring techniques to take our models to another level. Today it is our lovely 21T MDO wagons that are the subject, as Alex Roughsedge captures the rather battered state the real wagons ended up in. Take it away, Alex! Built between 1950 and 1952, the British Railways 21t MDO wagons were a mainstay of mineral traffic for the best part of 40 years, lasting in some cases until the early nineties. Accurascale’s models are superb renditions straight out of the box, but they’re just too clean! MDOs got utterly filthy in service, some ending up with remarkably little of their original grey colour left. Hopefully, this tutorial will help make your own models just that little bit more prototypical. Usually, my own weathering methods involve heavy airbrush use, but I know not everybody will have the luxury of an airbrush in their own toolkit. As such, I’ve tried to keep the use of this to a minimum. The airbrush is used solely for varnishing; rattle cans are a perfectly good substitute. We’ll make a start with the first MDO, B202043. Looking at photos on the internet of the real wagon this model is based on, the weathering is somewhat different to the other two MDOs included in Pack H so we’ll focus solely on this one for the time being. The very first step here is to give the model an overall coat of matt varnish. I favour Mr Color’s GX113, a lacquer-based formula with UV blocking technology that should prevent any yellowing or fading of the colours over time. I thin this around 50/50 with their own lacquer thinners and apply a generous coat to the model. This gives a nice key for the subsequent weathering, as well as a smooth, predictable surface. Mr Color offer this exact varnish in rattle can form which would be just as good, but any decent matt varnish can be substituted here. Studying photos of B202043 on Paul Bartlett’s superb Zenfolio page, the wagon appears almost completely dark brown, and has retained very little of its original BR grey after many years of hard work. To my eye, this looks more like heavy dirt than rust as such, and there are what appear to be areas where this dirt has been rubbed away revealing remnants of the grey underneath. More on this a little later. To begin with, a general coat of Vallejo Mecha Color 69.035 ‘Chipping Brown’ was thinned a little with tap water and applied to the areas between the side ribs, taking care to preserve the beautifully applied factory markings. This doesn’t have to be particularly neat, and I only applied a single coat to add to the rough appearance. The side ribs are significantly cleaner on the real wagon than the areas in between, but these are still pretty grubby. The same Vallejo Chipping Brown colour was now added to the remaining grey areas using a small piece of sponge held in some self-closing tweezers. This is applied in a stippling motion and can create some incredibly convincing chipped paint effects. This technique nicely blends in the cleaner ribbing but leaves it noticeably cleaner than the rest of the wagon. It’s time to crack out some oil paints for the remainder of the weathering process. My chosen colours here being: ABT510 ‘Starship Filth’ and ABT240 ‘Cream Brown’ from 502 Abteilung, along with some bog standard ‘Mixing White’ and ‘Lamp Black’ from Winsor & Newton. These were applied to a small piece of cardboard to leech out some of the linseed oil which makes the paints a little easier to use and dry much faster. I began by mixing the Lamp Black and Mixing White to form a grey somewhat similar to the original BR grey. As mentioned above, the photos of the wagon seem to show some areas where the darker filth has been rubbed away, particularly around the doors, and what looks like the original BR grey is showing through. At least that’s my interpretation anyway. The mixed grey oil paint was applied neat to the model, following the photo references as closely as I could. The advantage of oils here is that these patches could then be blended slightly using white spirit to soften the edges. At this point, I gave the model another coat of matt varnish to seal the grey patches in so they wouldn’t be affected by the next stage of oils. An alternative here would be to leave the model to dry for 24-48 hours, but who has time for that?! The next step was to apply some neat Starship Filth in a streaking motion down the side of the wagon. Shortly after, neat white spirit on a large brush can be used to further refine these streaks. The beauty of oil paints is they remain adjustable for many hours, giving you full control over any effects you may want to achieve, to the point of being able to completely remove the paint if you’re not happy. Small amounts of other colours can also be added here, particularly the Cream Brown, to add further streaks and rain marks. At the same time, some oil washes can be added to the underframes and wheel centres. I used mainly Starship Filth here, but feel free to experiment. Wagon underframes ended up all manner of colours so you can really go to town. I applied mine as washes, before using some neat Lamp Black around the axleboxes to represent oil staining. Once this step was complete, I added a further coat of sealing varnish, however this time I used GX112 gloss. The reason for the gloss varnish this time was to allow a careful pin wash of Tamiya Black Panel Line Accent Colour to be applied to the nooks and crannies around the bodywork. This should hopefully bring back a little definition to the wagon and create some false shadows. The wash is allowed to run around details and along the side ribs, then once dry, the excess can be wiped away using a cotton bud dampened with White Spirit. I didn’t go too over the top with the inside of the wagon here, simply opting for an initial all-over wash of Mig Ammo ‘Light Rust Wash’, which was then augmented once dry with ‘Streaking Rust Effects’. The latter can be streaked in a vertical motion up and down the inner sides to give the impression of rust streaks left by rain. The final step for B202043 was to give it a good final coat of matt varnish. As you can see, the model now looks a million miles away from its original pristine finish, and hopefully much closer to how the real B202043 looked in service. Moving onto the other two wagons in the pack, B202125 and B202028. Paul Bartlett’s site again also has excellent images of these two wagons. Immediately it can be seen that these two are much rustier in appearance than B202043. As a result of this, I opted to start with Vallejo Model Color 71.037 ‘Mud Brown’ as a base coat for the rust effects. This was again thinned slightly with tap water and applied to the model in a single coat. Once dry, the Mig Ammo rust effects were cracked open once more. Similar to the wagon insides, an initial coat of the lighter colour was applied to the brown areas as a wash, before the darker colour was applied over the top and streaked in a downward motion using a large brush and White Spirit. Chipping Brown was once again applied using the sponge method to the side ribbing, and the top edge of the wagon in varying amounts according to the reference images. These two wagons feature more refined patches of grey, so here I used Pro Acryl ‘Bright Warm Grey’, a surprisingly good match for the original Accurascale BR Grey. This was applied carefully using a small brush, again following reference images. Another noticeable feature of these two wagons is the presence of much darker grey patches around the lighter rust areas. Here, neat Starship filth was applied roughly in the areas where these patches occur. There are also visible weld lines on the sides as well. I opted to represent these with thin lines of oil paint, but if you were feeling particularly adventurous then you could carefully scribe these lines in with a needle or scribing tool. As before, the oil paint is blended and feathered in using White Spirit. The weld lines were softened slightly using this method, before some very slight vertical streaking. As a bonus, this step also helps to blend in the grey patches applied previously. Perhaps the most curious feature of these particular wagons is a number of odd horizontal lines towards the top of the wagon. I can only begin to speculate on the purpose/reason for these lines – they appear to be above and below the weld lines so are they perhaps some result of the welding process? Maybe they’re simply to denote a fill line? I’m sure someone out there will know. I absolutely love replicating features like these lines on models as they just elevate it to another level. These were carefully painted on using a small brush and the neat Cream Brown oil paint. Once allowed to dry a little, these were again softened and refine using White Spirit. Also at this point I gave the interior the same treatment as with the previous model, and applied the black panel line wash too. The final step was to re-apply some chalk markings present on the real wagon. These are actually represented on the original Accurascale paint job but were obviously obliterated during the initial rust painting. To recreate these, I used a sharp Prismacolor White pencil, however, it must be noted that this has to be done over the final matt coat, and after the matt coat has had a number of hours to dry otherwise the pencil simply gouges away the varnish. These wagons were incredibly fun to weather. I don’t often try to recreate actual wagons using references, I usually use elements from various sources to create a representation of the subject, so it was a real novelty to try to get these as close to their real-world counterparts as I could. ORDER YOUR ACCURASCALE MDO WAGONS BY CLICKING HERE!
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Fitting your Class 66 Crew
Take your new Accurascale Class 66 up a notch by adding one of our ModelU Crew packs! Using the simple guide below, we'll show you how quickly and easily adding a crew to your locomotive is. Follow the step-by-steps below to really enhance your Shed, all you'll need is one of our Class 66 driver packs and some glue. Step one: Unclip the body from the four positions shown. Step two: With the body removed, turn it upside down and gently pulling the body outwards will release the cab. Step three: With the Cab removed, now would be a good time to also consider adding the fully detailed Valance/Bufferbeam. See our guide here: https://www.accurascale.com/blogs/lets-get-involved/fitting-your-class-66-front-valance-bufferbeam Step four: Place your pre-sized crew into the location of choice using an adhesive such as PVA on the cab seats. Step five: Allow glue to dry before replacing the body. Step six: Replace the cab into the body, making sure the spigots find their securing holes. When returning the body to the chassis be careful of the hanging air pipes. With the body back on, you're now free to enjoy your detailed Accurascale Class 66 on your layout. Browse our full range of Class 66s right here: https://www.accurascale.com/collections/class-66
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Fitting your Class 66 Front Valance/Bufferbeam
Check out our handy step-by-step guide to swap the front valance on your new Accurascale Class 66...
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Fitting your Class 37 Headcodes
You've purchased your new early Class 37, and you'll no doubt have noticed the headcodes on either end of the model. These played a huge role in identifying locomotives and their trains to signallers up and down the network, allowing them to recognise the train's type and its intended route. This simple guide will show you how to easily change your locomotive's headcodes to suit best your needs. Step one: Remove the body from the chassis by teasing the body over the four clips (two located at each end of the model). This is best done before buffer beam detatil is added. Step two: Turn the body over and locate the rear of the headcode boxes. Step three: Gently push the headcode face out of the body, for best results use a small blunt instrument like a modeller's flathead screwdriver. Once removed, they can be separated into three parts, the headcode face, the headcode itself and the supporting frame. Step four: In your Locomotive box, we've provided a full set of Headcode numbers and a reference sheet for your convenience. Select which option best suits your layout. Step five: Attach a frame to the back of the chosen number, note the headcode numbers are sticky, this helps keep the frame in place while handling. Step six: Now place the frame onto the inside of the headcode face. Note the position of the handle when arranging the orientation of the numbers. Step seven: Replacing the headcode faces onto the locomotive, they may require a tiny drop of PVA glue just to hold them in position. We recommend PVA as it can be removed in future should you wish to change the numbers at a later stage. Step eight: While the body is removed from the Chassis, this is a good time to add an Accurascale crew to your locomotive. (https://www.accurascale.com/collections/crews-and-people) Simply glue them in place with a drop of PVA to complete the look. Now your locomotive is complete and ready to be put to work on your layout. Browse our full range of Class 37s right here: https://www.accurascale.com/collections/class-37
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Let's Get Involved - Class 37 Weathering Guide by James Makin
Who doesn't love a filthy tractor? Well, you can make yours grubby too with James Makin's guide to weathering one of our Class 37s. Check out his handy step-by-step guide right here....
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Let's Get Involved - Weathering JSA Wagons With James Makin
Take the best steel wagon in OO/4mm, add one of the best weathering talents out there, and end up with awesome models thanks to this epic guide. Welcome to our JSA weathering guide with James Makin in our latest "Let's Get Involved" modelling series...
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Let's Get Involved - Your 20-step guide to a work-worn CDA with James Makin
Fancy weathering and/or backdating your CDA wagons? Check out this fun 'how to' guide by James Makin in our latest "Let's Get Involved" blog...
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Let's Get Involved - Accurascale Class 92
"Let's Get Involved" is back! Today we have an accessory-fitting guide for our Class 92 locomotive. But that's not all, we will also show you how simple it is to DCC sound fit your DCC ready locomotive. Fancy some of your own? Click here to order! Our model comes highly detailed with lots of high fidelity parts, following this guide will show you how, with a few extra steps you can turn your model into the definitive Class 92 locomotive. Prototype inspiration 92023 hauling the Caledonian Sleeper on an ECML diversion past Helpston signal box - Mike Wild Since introduction in 1993, the fleet of 46 locomotives has been allocated to freight, however six of the class now operate the Caledonian Sleeper service between London and Scotland. This provides us with a multitude of possible scenarios to recreate on our layouts, for example in the above image we see 92023 heading south into the sun causing the driver to lower their blinds. Hauling Mk5 coaches results in the loco being fitted with dellner couplings, we can recreate these scenarios with the range of buffer beam/cab detailing components included in the box. We can also add a driver and second man using our driver packs (available here). First thing's first, we need to remove the body. Removing the bodyStep 1Locate the release clips on the underside of the body, there will be one each side of the bogie. Step 2 Using your fingers at the location of the body clips, pull the body sides outwards while also lifting the body upwards away from the chassis. Step 3 With the body removed you're now able to easily gain access to the cab and fit a DCC decoder to the loco. DCC/DCC Sound fittingStep 4 For DCC or DCC Sound installation you will require either a 'Class 92 Lokpilot DCC Decoder' (available here) or a 'Class 92 DCC Sound Decoder'. Step 5 Locate and gently remove the blanking plate from the PCB, being careful not to bend any of the pins. Step 6Next fit your DCC decoder by placing it onto the pins the blanking plate has just come from. The decoder has one pin hole missing, which marries up to the pins as shown in the picture below. Be careful not to bend the pins when replacing the decoder. The Class 92 comes preinstalled with an Accurathrash speaker, so at this point the DCC or DCC sound installation is complete. Adding Cab detailStep 7To add a driver and the windscreen blinds we must remove the cab first, turn the locomotive body over and remove by placing two thumbs near the body clips and pushing outwards while using your index finger to gently prize the cab from its housing. Step 8With the cab removed you're now free to add a driver. Our Class 92 crew packs are designed to fit perfectly into the drivers chair. However, if you wish, you can place a spot of superglue on the chair. Step 9 With the driver seated in the chair, next locate the Class 92 window blind sheet which is included with the locomotive. It's worth looking at prototype images such as the one at the top of this guide to see how you'd like the blinds to look. Step 10 Using a scalpel or scissors, cut out two blinds of choice. If this has left a white edge you can use a felt tip pen to colour in the sides. Step 11 Holding a blind firmly with some tweezers, take a cocktail stick and apply a thin bead of glue to one edge of the blind. Step 12 Now add the blind to the body and attach the glued edge to the top of the window before repeating the process for the second pane. Adding external detailsStep 13 Before we clip the body back onto the chassis and allowing the glue to dry we can turn our attention to the exterior details. Locate the bag of bits included with the locomotive and carefully lay them out to check all small parts are present. Step 14 Consideration should be made as to which type of glue is used at this point, superglue being permanent whereas PVA can be adjusted over time. Locate the holes for the air dam and apply your glue of choice. Note that if the air dam is attached it is not possible to fit the NEM coupling to haul stock. Step 15 A good combination is to have the buffer beam details at the front end of the locomotive and the NEM coupling at the back. The coupling is easily added by locating the correct hole on the chassis. Gluing it in is recommended if you plan on hauling larger trains. Step 16 Next attach the pipework to the chassis and Air dam, its always worth having a test fit before adding glue. Step 17 There are two types of coupling that attach to the coupling hook (depending which locomotive you have depends which is in the box). These are easily attached although the hook can be removed from the buffer beam to allow better access for installation. Step 18 Some variants of the Class 92 have etched plates, add those to the body with a drop of glue. For best results try to line up with the bodyside plate exactly. This is a good point to check over the locomotive in case any detail parts have been knocked off with handling, which can be reattached with a drop of glue. You can then continue to reassemble your locomotive and you're ready to play.
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Let's Get Involved - Accurascale MHA ‘Coalfish’ wagons by James Makin
Let's Get Involved" is back! Today we have a weathering guide of our latest HMA Coalfish wagons by James Makin. But that's not all, James also shows you how to make your own loads and add graffitti too!
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Let's Get Involved - Weathering MGR Wagons With James Makin
Our "Let's Get Involved" how-to modelling blogs are back! First up is a weathering guide on our lovely MGR family of wagons by James Makin. Let's get filthy!
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Converting KUAs To P4 With Mike Ainsworth - Let's Get Involved
Want to convert your KUA Nuclear Flask wagons to finescale? Mike Ainsworth of the Scalefour Society shows you how with this simple step by step guide!
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