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Let's Get Physical Part 2


D869

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...and then there were two!

 

The second bromine tank has now made it through the ordeal of the paint shop. Now I have a model of the tank that started my interest in Associated Octel, complete with its no nonsense lettering and skull on the tank end... and a further use of virtual modelling to make something real.

 

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Painting and prep... this time I used some IPA on a cotton bud for another round of cleaning the 3d printed tank. The print also needed a rub down with some fine wet & dry to try to smooth out the rough surface texture. This was followed by a coat of Halfords grey primer and another rub down, then red primer (in an attempt to get a warmer yellow final result), Tamiya white acrylic and Tamiya yellow acrylic. Once all of this was dry it had a generous coat of Tamiya varnish to try to get the surface as glossy as possible for...

 

The decals!

 

Lack of suitable decals is one thing that often puts me off building a vehicle. I've now finally taken the plunge and had a go at doing some custom decals for the Octel vehicles that I hope to build. Of course in 2mm scale, you need a lot of decals to fill up enough space to make the job viable, so I spent a lot of time in front of Inkscape preparing artwork for as many vehicles as I could think of. I then spent a lot more time in correspondence with John Peck of Precision Decals getting the artwork turned into something suitable for his ALPS printer. John was extremely helpful and patient and I'm really grateful for all of his advice.

 

Anyway the fateful day arrived to stop tweaking the artwork and I hit 'send' on the final email. A week or so later the envelope arrived with the resulting prints. I have to say that I am extremely pleased with the results.

 

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Now the 'do as I say, not as I do' bit... I'd strongly recommend others NOT to start with full colour artwork. It's a lot of work to prepare for printing. Unfortunately that wasn't a possibility for the Octel vehicles so I had to jump in at the deep end.

 

The next step was then to take a deep breath and take a scalpel to the pristine new decal sheet. I don't think I could have picked a worse vehicle to start on because every single bit of branding on this tank has something to make life difficult. The big info panel is a tight squeeze between the 'T' strapping on the tank, the lid edge is both curved and very narrow and the tank end is of course domed making it difficult to get the decals to conform... plus of course there is the surface texture of the FUD which tends to be rather rough. The shape of these tanks also makes it difficult to rub down effectively. Of all of the branding, lettering the edge of the lid is by far the most difficult job, so if you're thinking of doing one of these then choose a tank without any lettering on the lid.

 

After two sessions courting disaster with the decals I finally got them all more or less where I wanted them. I think the low point was when I dropped one after soaking it, caught it and wound up with it stuck to my finger instead of the tank. Lesson: think more carefully about spares next time!

 

Once dry, the decals on the ends looked reasonably flat using just Micro Set but I hit them again with Micro Sol and this got rid of the few remaining tiny wrinkles.

Once all was dry the tank was sprayed with Testors Dullcote and left overnight to dry. Final assembly was also rather a fiddle. I've used Nick Tilson's extremely fine 'N Brass' container chains this time. They fit nicely into the lifting eyes on the tank and disappear through some holes drilled in the Lowfit floor but getting four chains fitted and the tank sat on its chassis all at the same time was rather a challenge. After several unsuccessful attempts to fit the tank with the chains already hooked on I eventually fitted the tank without the chains and then added the chains by bending each one in the middle, threading it and then pulling it straight again.

 

I've still yet to see a photo of one of these tanks where the branding on the Lowfit is even visible, let alone legible so I've left the wagon unlettered again.

 

The attempt to get warm yellow paint work doesn't seem to have worked. I think the previous tank has a slightly warmer yellow and that paint job was done straight on top of the grey primer.

 

So now I just need to build all of the other vehicles that I've got decals for...

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Andy,

Very nice.  All that hard work has really paid off.

Ian

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Thanks Ian. Looking forward to the 3 coach set of GWR 4 wheelers too. The branch services will certainly be stretching the timeline now.

 

Superb stuff Andy, look forward to seeing them on Saturday.

 

Cheers Jerry. Looking forward to it too. Could be another warm one I think.

 

Regards, Andy

 

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I agree with Jerry, apart from the seeing them on Saturday bit :(

 

Wot no Rich?

 

Just Ian holding the fort in the GWR era camp then.

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