New Skips from Great Britain (1/35)

Six new Hudson skips are now in service at Nystrup Gravel. The skips are the newest skips at the company and acquired a few years after the war. Great Britain were in those years the primary supplier of things mechanical to Denmark.

The finished skips received a layer of black ('Chaos Black' from Games Workshop). I have found this paint to be excellent, not just as a primer, it also works fine as covering paint. The larger surfaces - primarily the sides of the skip bodies - were given a thin layer of black grey to give variation to the otherwise very dark skips. Gloss varnish were applied with air brush were the decals had to go. The company name on each end of the skips are from 'Skilteskoven' while the numbers are cobbled together from an Accurate Armour decal sheet. As I wanted the skips to have numbers in pretty much chronological order it took quite some planning and mixing of single digit decal cutouts. Not the easiest of tasks. As much as I like my rule to use materials from my spares box I will probably have decals designed next time I face a 'cut and assemble' decal task of similar size. A light weathering with acrylic and oil paint, pastel powders and matt varnish finished off the skips.

Decals in place and matt varnished for protection. Weathering of tubs' interior has started. On skip 47 I have fitted one of my home made coupling chains. A better representation of the real ones than my usual simple chain links of equal link size.

Basic weathering in place. All that remains to be done is to blend everything together with pastel chalk powder and  a little graphite for worn metal.

As will be apparent, the United Kingdom supplied a large part of Denmark's import of machinery. From the Danish year book 'Hvem-Hvad-Hvor 1950' (Who-What-Where). A most usefull series of books enabling one to look up basically every possible fact of Danish society dating back to 1935. The year book is still published. I wouldn't miss my complete collection for the world.

Overall this project was done quite quickly by my standards. From ordering to finished skips a mere month and a half went by. Not all my projects are like that - the Chevrolet-lorry took more than 7 years!

More images of the new skips here and here.