Bridge Painting

I have had a couple of weeks on holiday from work and have spent some of this time modelling. I have finally painted my plastic laser cut bridge.

The plastic was first primed with two coats of Halfords grey plastic primer followed by a couple of coats of Plasti-Kote tan suede paint to provide some texture to the stone.

Bridge parts following priming and suede coat

The bridge has then been painted using Winton and Newton oil paints, which have been dry-brushed on in the manner described in David Wright's books - see www.dovedalemodels.co.uk. The paints take between two and five days to completely dry out and I found this time very useful to blend colours and re-work any areas that I was not satisfied with.

All paint types and colours used to paint bridge

Below are photos of the completed model bridge. The road is still to be painted but shows the original plastic colour and texture. 

Painted stonework without railway bridge supports

Bridge support installed together with etch fencing 

Bridge from other side note the 14' 6'' height limit i.e. 29mm

Bridge next to a £1 coin for size reference

Seacow passing over bridge

The laser cut etch mortar lines are quite deep and therefore I plan to fill these with talcum powder and then seal with a spray matt varnish to fix in place. I then plan to apply an acrylic wash to colour the mortar.

As the oil paints take such a long time to dry, I will wait at least a week to avoid any talcum powder sticking to the stone surface. If anyone has any alternative ideas for filling the mortar lines I would be pleased to receive your comments.