Now that the Y7 has been built, it's time to get it painted, an area of expertise I'm lacking in. I bought the Tony Wright and Ian Rathbone DVD on how to paint and weather and watched both parts. I don't have a spray facility such as Ian's so worked on a similar method to Tony's, ie out of doors. I washed the loco in Precision Paints pre-paint metal cleaner then sprayed it with their single pack etch primer. Following this, I sprayed a single coat of Halfords red primer then, once dried, sprayed with Halfords Satin black.

I brush painted the chassis with Precision Paints single pack etch primer then matt black and attempted to dry brush the coupling rods with matt black. Once the paint had dried I used Fox Transfers numbers and logos to give the loco an identity.

Next job is to have a go at weathering. I have a J15 that was built by John James and he has weathered it to look exactly how I think a work-a-day loco would look. I will attempt to get the Y7 to look like this. Another learning curve!

I know the Y7 paint finish isn't perfect, but buoyed by the success of the work I had a go at painting a J17 that I'd finished building. I used the same method as the Y7 and on the whole, I'm happy. There are one or two small blemishes that I've touched up using Humbrol number 85 paint - the identity has again been given with Fox transfers and the next step is weathering, again, to look like the J15 above. I've spoken with John, he also uses Halfords Satin black and this is what he painted the J15 with, so I reckon have a fair bit of work to do!

All in all, I'm happy with how things are progressing, and I hope you find this interesting. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Phil