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31466 EWS Respray

The Fatadder

Entry posted by The Fatadder

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A long time ago I started a respray of a Hornby Class 31 into the Wessex Trains pink livery as part of fleet of stock in 2006 condition. I got as far as converting the body, repairing the damage due to the original chassis expanding, and painting the yellow ends.

 

As part of my process of finishing off old projects either for use on Wheal Imogen or for sale, I have dug it out to finish off.

 

First off a decision was needed on which livery to paint it in, a toss up between Fraggonset Black, Large Logo Grey or EWS red. I have no photos of a class 31 working in Cornwall on anything other than a rail tour, so which ever option I went with the loco wouldn't be of much use on this layout (or my very long term project based around the Cornish mainline).

 

An identity
Up until yesterday the front runner was to be Large Logo grey, particularly as I have a Class 37 to paint in that livery. However while looking through Flickr for inspiration I came across photos of 31466 in ex works EWS at Totton in 1998. I have always had a soft spot for a Class 31 in EWS, there is something very interesting looking having such an old machine in a (then) modern livery. So that made the decision for me. ​Still no idea what on earth it is doing in clay country, so I suspect the old get out of jail free card of running it on an engineers train will be the obvious answer...

 

​Recapping the work so far,
I started with a body shell in BR blue, stripped the paint to remove the raised beading and removed the bufferbeam cowlings. a roof fan cowling from a Dutch Hornby model was added, as was a Shawplan etched roof grill. The headcode box was plated over with a Shawplan etch (but looking at the photos needs a little more filler). Ffinally a central high intensity headlight was fitted to the ends (the configuration that I do not believe Hornby have ever tooled up). ​For the moment this is non working, but eventually it will have to have an LED fitted...

 

​It was then primed in white, had the warning yellow ends sprayed followed by brush paining Wessex pink for the joint between yellow and the windows. The concern was that given the location of the pink - yellow joint masking had a high risk of failure, so brush painting here allowed for an overlap of the joint when masking.

 

Getting on with the model
I started by spraying the gold, foolishly I did this yesterday in sub zero external temperatures (although I did have the garage heater on full for 2 hours before spraying.) As a result I cant determine if my painting issues were down to poor mixing of paint or the cold. Either way the 31 was just about ok for a first coat, while the 37 / 50 that I was spraying yellow ends were total failures. Today I have been brush painting some repairs (as well as getting paint on the tricky to reach bits). This was followed by overpainting the Wessex pink with EWS maroon. this will be cut back with some fine emery paper before spraying. I also noticed the yellow is approx. 2mm too high for the new loco identity, so this will need overspraying with maroon when I eventually get round to it.
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Once it warms up I will be taking the loco to the club along with my airbrush to spray under supervision, aiming to identify any issues with technique before I mask up and spray the maroon.

 

Then I can get on with painting the grey 37 and LL blue 50.....

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James Hilton

I wonder if the paint is a little thick? I never got on with Phoenix paints anyway, and resorted to Railmatch or Humbrol enamels... good luck, I have a soft spot for 31s, especially in Regional Railways livery!

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  • RMweb Gold
The Fatadder
  • RMweb Gold

Interesting, I was thinking I had gone the other way and used too much thinners

 

Either way I doubt the temperature helped, the problem is that spraying time is so limited given that I want a couple of hours of uninterrupted modelling time, and given the opportunity I couldn’t resist...

 

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bescotbeast

Can I ask, how easy did you find it to remove windows? and how did you strip it? I'm asking as I've ordered a 31 from ebay and I intend stripping it and repainting it, this will be my 2nd attempt. The first attempt went badly and I was unable to remove the windows, I attempted to strip the paint in Brake fluid and the body ended up melting. As you can imagine I don't wish to go down the same road as my first try.

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  • RMweb Gold
The Fatadder
  • RMweb Gold

Windows were carefully pushed through after removing the cab interiors. I don't recall any major issues removing them (on this or on the class 50 I was painting at the same time), but if there was I would have carefully ran a scalpel around the inside edges of the plastic surrounding the window moulding to try and brake the glue. Now the painting is finished I need to get on and reassemble the glazing...

 

 

As for stripping the paint, I used nail polish remover (making sure to use the type which does not contain acetone (which will melt the body) The bodyside grills I removed (pushed out) likewise the doors, while the roof grill was binned and replaced with a Shawplan etch. This is because removing the softened paint from grills can be a real pain (and with the body side ones they only really needed a coat of primer, while I always replace roof grills with a finer etch as a matter of course.)

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