Hints and Tips
At the risk of sounding a bit like an extract from Viz or Household Hints, here are some useful tips and tricks that might be helpful when constructing your model railway. I make no claims for originality on any of these; they're all tips that I've picked up over the years either from other railway modellers or from publications that I've read.
Buildings and Scenery
Aluminium foil (cooking foil) makes good corrugated roofing. Cut some ordinary cooking foil into strips and then corrugate it by rubbing it over a long-toothed comb. Paint it a rusty metal colour!
Toilet paper makes good felt or rolled roofing. Use single-ply white toilet paper (Tesco Value or Sainsbury's Basics are ideal!), cut it into strips and glue it to your model's roof. Then paint it in place to represent rolled felt roofing.
Google is a great source of signs and posters! Use Google's image search to find photos of vintage signs, advertising posters, etc and then resize them using editing software before printing them on a colour printer. You don't need large or high-resolution images as you'll be printing them at fairly small sizes anyway. Enamel signs are best printed on glossy photo paper, and hoarding-sized posters on ordinary matt paper.
Locomotives and Rolling Stock
Photocopier/laser printer toner makes good weathering material. Just be careful not to get it where you don't want it, as it's almost impossible to remove!
Update: I've had an email about this tip, pointing out that printer toner is considered a health risk - see the page at http://www.inktec-uk.co.uk/Printers/printer-toners.htm for more details - and suggesting that this article ought to be removed, or at least accompanied by a health warning. I certainly wasn't aware of this issue before, and I would encourage anyone reading this to think carefully about how they handle printer toner if they do decide to use this method of weathering.
More hints and tips to follow - this is just the start!
