The Watercress Belle departs Ropley for Alton.
Hello all.
Since the last entry I have made a start on repainting a Farish FO to represent one of the coaches painted in a faux Pullman scheme and used on the MHR's dining services. Two of these are required, along with an RU, MK.1 Pullman and BG to make up the set used on the Watercress Belle and Countryman services.
Those that read the Painting and Weathering section of the forum will know that getting to this stage seen above has been a little more problematic than I initially anticipated. The plan was to strip the factory finish with Phoenix Superstrip as recommended by many people, so a bottle was duly ordered and the BG submerged and left to soak for the 20 minutes suggested on the instructions. What I came back to find wasn't encouraging!
Hmm......
As you can see from the photo above, the superstrip had some sort of reaction with the plastic, causing strange patterns to appear, and in some areas what can only be described as a 'furry' texture! Suffice to say, this body was a write off and it was back to square one.
A further browse around the web suggested that some people have had success removing paint with
Fairy Power Spray so it was off to Tesco to acquire a bottle. This time I placed the body in a ziplock freezer bag and left it to soak for 24 hours before setting too with a soft tooth brush. The lining and numbers had already come away, and 10 minutes later the factory finish was gone too.Much Better!
The Black paint used by Farish on the ends of the coach seemed to need a little more work to shift it, becoming quite sticky, but eventually I was down to bare plastic and ready for painting. I would strongly recommend that if you intend to use Superstrip on the latest Farish models, test it out on a hidden area first!
Now, a little bit of a confession. I'm quite lazy when it comes to painting, and if I can find the colour I need in the Halfords range of sprays then I'd always use that rather than faff around with the airbrush. Initially I didn't think I'd have any luck with the Pullman scheme. Lets face it, you don't see many brown or cream cars around these days! However, it seems the 70's must be alive and well in some arena of the motoring fraternity as Ford Sahara Beige and Rover Russet Brown are a pretty close match for the Cream and Umber scheme. (The lady at the till did ask if I was really going to use these colours together......)
The basic scheme complete and just needing lining out.
I'm quite pleased with how this as turned out, and the last hurdle is finding suitably thin lining to finish it off. The roof also needs to be resprayed a darker grey to match the prototype and some 2mm table lamps sourced.
In addition to the repaint, the coach has also had the moulded on steps, lamp brackets and 'ledge' over the corridor removed as well as the Commonwealth bogies swapped for BR.1s. The pipework from the ends of the coaches will be replaced once painting is finished, although this will have to be made from scratch as the original was firmly glued in place and it was impossible to remove without damaging it.
With many thanks to Pixie, a new BG body has been sourced to replace the damaged one, so work on that should be able to start once the FO is complete.
Cheers all!
Tom.
- 16
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