TIM SHACKLETON takes a scaled-down approach to giving ‘N’ gauge models a life-like finish.
There’s a convention among model-makers that, when your eyesight starts to fail, you move up to a larger scale. I can see the reasoning behind this but I think it’s flawed.
To my mind, you’d be better advised to switch to a smaller scale – there’s less fiddly detail to take into account and more that can comfortably be omitted. An ‘O’ gauge locomotive without a full set of lamp irons or brake rodding looks incomplete – in ‘N’ gauge, you’d hardly notice they’re missing.
Less is definitely more in small-scale railway modelling. Unless executed with finesse, anything even remotely clumsy or overdone looks out of place and draws attention to itself – so it’s best avoided. This is definitely true of weathering and finishing where the highly detailed techniques I use in larger scales can be too much in ‘N’ gauge. A measured, economical approach is called for, hinting at particular effects - if you like, it’s a tune where you can play far fewer notes to achieve the same effect, but they have to be the right ones.
Above: Three ‘N’ gauge locomotives in very different external condition – a gleaming ‘Jubilee’, a nondescript ‘Black Five’ and a d…
