Paint your wagon - Part Four

This will probably be the last post on wagon modifications as my stock box is nearing the magic 30 (29 + guard's van) maximum.

For most of my wagons I've separated the bodies from the chassis to apply the decals - not a difficult job, just a matter of bending the tabs underneath and then bending them back afterwards. Most have required very little work to the wheels or couplings and most are in good condition.

For my next design, I chose Cadbury, again there are many different versions over the years, this is a variation of my own which looks good on a tinplate body...

As I have a period Bedford HA Pukka Pies van on the layout it seemed fitting to have some railway wagons. They've been making pies since 1964 so it qualifies!

For this particular wagon, there is significant corrosion to the chassis so this has been left off while I repaint it...

My final wagon design is fitted to some of the poorest looking wagons I've ever seen.

I made the opening, and only bid on Ebay and received this pair of wagons, they really were as bad as they look in this picture from the auction itself...

At the time I considered that these would be fit only for scrapping - the roofs were badly dented and the rust is obvious.

For the roofs, I was able to push most of the dents out by hand, some of the deeper, smaller ones were tapped out using a hammer and punch. There is some kind of lacquer finish to these so the only option was to strip back to bare metal.

The same roof as the one in the foreground above, now rubbed down and almost ready for paint...

 And the final result - the chassis was cleaned up, wire brushed, primed and painted in satin black. The roof was primed and lacquered as per the usual process for the rest of the wagons.

As for the final design, had to be Hornby Dublo really.

This is actually a copy & paste of the banner on the front page of this very blog. Printed and cut to size, these look quite impressive - a far cry from when it arrived here several days ago.

I have now refurbished 27 wagons since beginning this task several weeks ago. With two more on the way I'll have filled the stock box and created a goods train formed entirely of refurbished wagons. These will not be to everyone's taste but I'll have taken 29 wagons, of which most were only fit for scrapping and certainly not for public exhibition, and done something different. These "neverwazza" items wont appeal to everyone but once again it's something different that you wont see on many other HD layouts!