Progress has been quite considerable over the past few evenings..

The next stage was to get spraying.

Now, it's been a very long time since I've used my airbrush in anger. I needed to add an in-line filter to the Compressor outlet to prevent moisture in the line, something I had remembered had begun to happen previously with prolonged use. It was a simple fit - a few 1/4" to 1/18" reducers sourced from Ebay and we were good to go. The airbrush I use is only a cheapo one from the Draper range, but the way I see it is I am no expert air brush user, so why do I need an expert airbrush? I might invest in the future but for now it suits me just fine.

I must admit, this is the first time I have used an airbrush to actually apply an entire livery. Historically my use of it has purely been for weathering effects on locos. My preference prior to this has always been to brush paint my models, but part of the reason I chose this project over another one I had on the workbench, was the simplicity of the livery. This way I could play around experimenting with different techniques without too much risk of every going the shape of a pear....

Here follows some handy tips I had long consigned to the memory banks that came flooding back as I was mentally preparing myself for the "event" ...

• Always clean out the airbrush at the soonest available opportunity after spraying.
  
• Prior to airbrushing, obtain a good few disposable pippets (cheap as chips) and small sample bottles.
  
• Use the pippets for thinning down the paint, and the bottles for mixing prior to transferring to the airbrush pot.
  
• Always make a bit more than you need, keep the remainder of the mixes in the small sample bottles until the project is complete. This way you will get an exact match of paint finish should you need to do any touching up along the way.
  
• When masking for the next colour, always apply a small amount of the masked off colour to the exposed edge of the masking tape. This way any seepage will occur there and then, but will be of the right colour, which when dry fills any minute holes that may have been thus preventing further seepage when the next colour is applied.
  
• Try wherever possible to spray in batches when modelling models in the same livery, rather than one model at a time. Set up a mini production line so that each model is treated to each colour at the same time. This cuts out a lot of faffing around cleaning the airbrush etc, and you can be assured that the finish will be the same across your fleet.
  

I used Phoenix paints "FGW Blue (dull)" for the body sides, Railmatch "Rail Black" for bogies/underframe/ends and Railmatch "NSE Grey" for the roof. In each case phoenix paint thinners were used to get the paint to the right consistency for spraying. I mixed at around 60:40 Paint to thinners.

Once the sides had been treated to a couple of coats of FGW Blue, they were left to dry out properly overnight. The coach ends were also given a couple of coats of FGW Blue, as the livery partially wraps around the ends.

Meanwhile, the roof on each coach was given a couple of coats of NSE Grey.

The following evening, masking tape was applied to the coach ends for the wrap around part of the livery. FGW blue was then carefully brush applied to the masking tape edge. The coach ends and underframe, along with the bogies, were then given acovering of Rail Black.

Again, the whole lot was then left alone to dry thoroughly before proceeding any further.

Once fully dry, the coaches were reassembled, and an inspection of the paint finish was carried out... success !

Coach 6338 was then dismantled again, and a Flashing Tail Light was added to one end. This is just a red LED (With long stem) complete with 1k Ohm Resistor (Which I might have to reduce having tested as the light works, but is dimmer than I would like) wired up using an old DCC Decoder that was good for Function use only these days, and a drilled out "Replica Railways" Tail lamp (Plastic rather than the Springside Whitemetal versions). The decoder was then programmed so that output B would give a strobe effect. (Old Lenz decoder so CV51 set to 1, CV57 set to 64 to achieve this).

Both coaches were then put back together completely and transfers were added, followed by handrails fashioned from 0.45mm Brass wire, and finally the cantrail stripes were applied using a Bob Moore Lining pen. (Again, it is imperative that this tool be kept clean when not in use).

The nearly finished result can be seen below :

All that remains now is a coat of Satin varnish (I hate Gloss finishes with a passion ) along with some light weathering. Watch this space !