First attempt at renumbering in N gauge

[millerhillboy]

If you zoom in on the cabside of 60152 , I had used the eraser pencil technique on that and the cabside was a notably different more polished look.i didnt use satin clear or any clear, simply applied decals, set with microsol and then sealed with games workshop satin from an aerosol.

Edited May 12, 2018 by millerhillboy

[millerhillboy]

I'm wondering if I'm confused here...

 

Are you talking about a sealing coat of matt or satin clear paint via brush after the decals are on?

 

I was talking about using satin clear to provide a suitable surface to apply decals onto. I always seal the whole model by masking up windows etc and blast the whole thing with satin from the aerosol.

I couldnt imagine doibg it via brush.

[jamespetts]

Ahh, yes, I was talking about a sealing coat after applying the decals - I think that the Brasso shines the paint enough not to need a gloss varnish base coat. May I ask what aerosol that you recommend?

[millerhillboy]

Right got you, no you are probably right about the brasso, the eraser pencil does the same thing, leaves a nice shiney localised area. I use brush applied satin in cases where I havent perhaps erased a number or a complete respray for example.

 

Final sealing coat has to be spray applied whether that be airbrush or aerosol. I've never had an airbrush.

 

I'm curently using games workshop purity seal

 

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Citadel-Purity-Seal-2017?_requestid=1537736

 

I used to use testors dullcote which is fabulous but is probably full matt and is hard to come by.

I find the purity seal takes the edge of plastic model looking colours but isnt full matt either.

 

Forget brushing for that altogether. I once tried to do something on a tender with a brush and varnish..... never again.

 

Keep us posted

Edited May 12, 2018 by millerhillboy

[jamespetts]

Splendid, thank you for clarifying that. I have just ordered some of the aerosol varnish.

 

Thank you for the tip regarding the undercoat of satin varnish, too: there are some places where things such as NSE logos will need to be applied in a place that has not bee subject to Brasso treatment, so I shall bear that in mind for those instances.

 

I did try experimentally brushing a more concentrated coat of the Vallejo varnish onto an old carriage but found that this was indeed no better and that the coating was very uneven. Happily, it came off very easily with water and a cloth.

[millerhillboy]

I suppose you could always just use the brasso anyway on a new area.

[jamespetts]

Yes, I did consider that, but if the satin varnish works, this is probably a safer option, since this is easily reversible, whereas Brasso is not.

[millerhillboy]

I dont use that technique often as mostly I'm renumbering but if I recall I bought acrylic satin by tamiya possibly, tamiya stuff usually being spot on, but like you I ďidnt get on with at all, had a slightly gloopy feel to it and was impossible to use for n gauge.

 

I think but would have to check I use an enamel clear satin when required.

 

I think you'll like the purity seal.

[jamespetts]

What I ordered was not "Purity Seal", but "Munitorium Varnish", which I understand is the successor to "Purity Seal". What I cannot find out is whether this is acrylic or polyurethane varnish - do you know which it is? I know that Railtec specifically recommend acrylic.

[PaulCheffus]

I used to use testors dullcote which is fabulous but is probably full matt and is hard to come by.

 

Hi

 

I get mine from here

http://www.ngtrains.com/Pages/Glues/gluestools.html#Potions

 

Cheers

 

Paul

[millerhillboy]

What I ordered was not "Purity Seal", but "Munitorium Varnish", which I understand is the successor to "Purity Seal". What I cannot find out is whether this is acrylic or polyurethane varnish - do you know which it is? I know that Railtec specifically recommend acrylic.

I'm afraid I don't knows the answer to that, other than to confirm you are right about the Munitorium Varnish renaming and new recipe. I did have a tin of purity seal which was going white, but I spray in the garage and although historically I haven't had a problem with any other aerosol in there I just assumed it was the garage atmosphere making it go white. Turns out when I bought the Munitorium tin from my local model aircraft/car shop the guy had said they had a problem with the old recipe, hence the new name.

[jamespetts]

Splendid, thank you. I have not had a chance to work on renumbering lately, as I have been busy putting together a small test layout to test automation software. I will test this varnish on the carriage before applying it to the locomotive, but I will need to re-apply a number, as one of the numbers seems to have become detached and has gone missing (which, presumably, is one of the things that varnish is there to prevent in the first place).

[millerhillboy]

Its worth doing a test run of course, but I didn't have a problem with the new recipe stuff.

[jamespetts]

I have now had a chance to replace the missing no. 5 decal on the carriage and test the varnishing. Results have generally been good, save for the consequences of an error that I made in spraying the varnish too close on one occasion.

 

The photographs of the work are below. I masked and varnished the carriage on both sides, and the result is a good near-matt finish, although it can be a little speckled looking if examined closely. I am not sure whether I need to push the spray nozzle down harder or spray for longer to avoid this.

 

Likewise, I masked the class 47 and sprayed this: it eliminated the shiny areas where I had applied the Brasso and reduced the appearance of the decal backing sheets, although the latter remain visible to an extent, so I shall have to try the Microsol/Microset as recommended.

 

However, unfortunately, when I was spraying one of the sides, I accidentally sprayed it too close to the locomotive (about 10cm instead of 20-40cm as recommended): this caused the transfers to bubble and lift (looking visibly white where they did so), and caused some whitening of the blue parts of the locomotive. I was able partly to rescue this by scraping away the clear parts of the transfers that had bubbled and turned white and applying a fresh light coat of varnish from the correct distance, but the numbers are now slightly damaged in appearance and the whitening and some surface blemishing remains. The damage to the numbers is not entirely at variance with what some pictures of the era show was how some of the locomotives looked, but I might need to try to weather this locomotive at some point to disguise the other difficulties.

 

The side on which I did not have trouble looks a lot better, but it does have more of a rough/speckled look than would be ideal. Any thoughts on how to address this would be welcome.

[millerhillboy]

Decent results James, and you are on the right lines now IMO anyway, but I would say that!! A lot of this is trial and error as you are finding but you will crack it I'm sure.

 

Not sure about the speckling effect you mention, I think I do see it very very close up but post sealing I tend to weather anyway, with maybe powders or washes so perhaps its not an issue.

 

Definitely try microsol and microset, see if that solves your backing problem. Another tip might be to try as best you can to cut away as much of the backing as you safely can to minimise any effect you see. A magnifying glass and a brand new scalpel blade helps with this task.

 

Finally, I see you masked the engine room windows with tape, I'd suggested getting a hold of some maskol for that kind of task/

 

https://www.humbrol.com/uk-en/maskol-28ml-bottle.html

 

an excellent product that goes on with a paint brush, and fills things like windows nicely for spraying and then just peels off as easy as you like when the spray coat has tried. Well worth having.

[jamespetts]

Thank you for your feedback: that is helpful. I have just ordered some Microsol, Microset and Maskol as suggested. I did wonder when I was masking the engine room windows what to do about the little bit of blue between the windows and the roof which on this model is now unvarnished.

 

I am interested that you weather without an airbrush - do you have a thread where you post your results with this technique? I should be most interested to see what you can achieve.

[millerhillboy]

I do have a workbench thread, but I do send a lot of my loco weathering to a guy called Alba weathering who is very good IMO, however I tend to do wagons myself and I have done some locos.

 

Here's the WB thread, http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/113691-millerhillboys-n-gauge-workbench/

 

These are links to stuff  I did do from that thread

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/113691-millerhillboys-n-gauge-workbench/&do=findComment&comment=2392806

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/113691-millerhillboys-n-gauge-workbench/&do=findComment&comment=2605677

 

 

Edited May 28, 2018 by millerhillboy

[jamespetts]

Those are quite impressive.

[jamespetts]

I have been doing some more work on renumbering to-day. First, I had a go at a slightly more ambitious project: renaming one of my two NSE 47 581 "Great Eastern" locomotives into 47 573 "The London STANDARD". This is more ambitious because, not only do I need to change the name and number, but I also need to re-colour the front, as the front panel on this was yellow rather than black as on 47 581:

 

47573 Paddington by Bingley Hall, on Flickr

 

I had some problems with this. It is theoretically possible to abrade away the black paint to reach the yellow beneath, which is what I planned to do, but it quickly transpired that this is not practical owing to the awkward shape: the bare plastic of the middle part became exposed whilst black still predominated at the edges:

 

 

Also, the steel coloured paint on the handrail came off even though I had masked that area.

 

I also had some other problems: the little footsteps at the front became dislodged and one of them has become lost. Also, in order to avoid damaging the plastic transmitters for the lights when using the Brasso, I tried to remove the cab inserts on both sides, but, ironically, this broke all of the transparent plastic inserts. I have tried to re-glue these using UHU, but I do not know whether this will work.

 

At least the sides were somewhat more successful in the removal of the old name/number:

 

 

I have yet to apply the new number.

 

The only solution to this now is to paint the front ends yellow. I have ordered a yellow aerosol of the correct colour from Railmatch paints and also some black enamel from Phoenix Precision Paints to re-paint the buffer beam black rather than red (given the colour and the location, I am hoping that brush painting thinned enamels will give a good enough finish here).

 

If the painting is a success, there might be something to be said for trying to convert an Intercity Mainline liveried class 47 into an Intercity swallow liveried class 47, but that is a project for another day.

 

---

 

A less ambitious project that I tried afterwards that has been considerably more successful so far is adding NSE branding to a blue/grey Dapol class 121. I used Brasso again to clean away the redundant BR logo at the guard's end and used Railtec transfers for the NSE branding.

 

 

I did try using Microsol, but this caused the transfer to curl at the top and bottom, although I eventually corrected this by brushing on further water:

 

 

I wonder whether the transfer is either too small for Microsol, or whether perhaps Railtec transfers are simply better being applied with water alone. I could not discern a carrier film other than at very acute angles on these transfers (unlike the large logo class 47 whose transfers' carrier film is much more visible).

 

I also added flashes at the ends, again using Railtec transfers, this time without Microsol. Even though there was nothing to remove, I had used a little Brasso on this area to shine it a little to make it accept the transfer more readily:

 

 

I have yet to add varnish, which I plan to do to-morrow in the garden.

 

I have two of these and have done one so far. The other will, of course, additionally have to be renumbered. However, there is then a problem with this. Whilst I have found transfers (from Fox) for the main carriage numbers, I have not found anywhere that sells the small black set numbers that go on the front:

 

Class 121 124 55024 Slough by Tony Walmsley, on Flickr

 

The above image is a little unusual, as the "124" would normally have been preceded by (in this area) an "L":

 

Class 121 Bubble Car at Paddington by Peter Bayliss, on Flickr

 

Class 104 53540 and Class 121 54289 hybrid DMU set L263 approaches Pressed Steel Class 121 'Bubble Car' 55029 near West Ealing station by themightyhood, on Flickr

 

Does anyone have any ideas where I can get transfers for black numbers and letters of the correct size?

Edited July 7, 2018 by jamespetts

[millerhillboy]

Have you tried contacting Fox direct, if you give them a call they do tend to be very helpful. I sèe they have a shèet with the digits but not the proceeding 'L'.

 

Fox do a non railway specific range of alphabets that might just work.

 

As I say maybe worth a call.

[jamespetts]

Thank you for the suggestion. I have already asked about custom transfers from Railtec,and am currently awaiting a reply, but if I do not get a satisfactory answer within a reasonable time, I will also ask Fox.

[jamespetts]

I have now had a preliminary response from the Railtec transfer people, who write that "on initial glance, it seems doable", that he has somewhat of a backlog of work and that he will revert to me substantively in due course.

[jamespetts]

My paint arrived to-day; I tried to paint the black parts of the cab ends yellow using a Railmatch aerosol. However, this was not much of a success: the black was still very visible underneath the yellow paint sprayed on (indeed, almost as visible as before I sprayed the paint!).

 

I should be grateful for advice as to how to proceed here: would it be better just to build up lots of coats, or should I start again and try somehow stripping the black paint? If the latter, what should I use - paint thinners?

[millerhillboy]

My paint arrived to-day; I tried to paint the black parts of the cab ends yellow using a Railmatch aerosol. However, this was not much of a success: the black was still very visible underneath the yellow paint sprayed on (indeed, almost as visible as before I sprayed the paint!).

 

I should be grateful for advice as to how to proceed here: would it be better just to build up lots of coats, or should I start again and try somehow stripping the black paint? If the latter, what should I use - paint thinners?

I'd have said a coat or two of primer might have served you well in advance. Might still be the case even atop the too thin yellow.

 

Another thing is that its worth making sure aerosols are at room temperature at least, and are well shaken. It might be the yellow hasnt went on fully. I've sèen thst happen before.

 

Id be tempted to apply a cost of primer and try again IF you still think the detail is prominent enough to take more coats.

[jamespetts]

Can I ask how the primer will assist? I had thought that the purpose of primer was to allow paint to key onto a surface so as not to flake off - how would primer be better here than more coats of yellow?