70021 Morning Star

Hello Rob, Yes indeed, these are an ideal starting point for paint mixing. They're great for the initial mix, where you need to get the heavier components off the sides, base, and corners of the paint jar. Unfortunately, as you'll be aware, recent health and safety changes mean paints take a lot more -- an awful lot more -- mixing than they used to. I'd suggest adding one of those little battery powered electric coffee frothers to your kit. They really do mix things up and ensure that the paint will behave correctly. Have fun, Rick

Hello Brian, There's lots of ways that a manufacturer can get these models painted. As you can imagine, there's spray painting, dipping, and pad printing. Was there some particular reason for your question? Were you wanting to duplicate some technique? You could try emailing Bachmann customer support. They're usually very helpful. Then you can publish what they say, on here, to answer your own question. Have fun, Rick

MOST IMPORTANT is getting the paint thoroughly mixed in the tin. That's before you add any thinner. Due to recent health and safety changes, all the manufacturers are having problems getting their paint components to blend nicely. That means YOU have to invest far more time and effort in ensuring your paint is thoroughly mixed in the tin before thinking about anything else. Two steps: 1) use a plastic spatula (like those illustrated in a previous posting) to pull all of the thicker residues off the base, sides, and corners of the tin. 2) buy one of those little battery powered electric coffee frothers. They're the best thing ever for really mixing the components of the paint back together after they've settled in the tin. Once your paint is thoroughly mixed, you'll avoid surprises when you try thinning it for airbrushing or brush painting. In my experience, most paint problems reported on RMweb are down to the paint not been mixed as thoroughly as had been though. ...believe me, I've been there. Have fun, Rick

I'm at the other end of the UK, but if you're still stuck, then PM me. Rick

As a professional artist and model maker, my advice is to ditch the ruling pen. Instead, invest some time and effort into learning to use a signwriter's lining brush. It'll give better, more consistent results, and prove easier to use in the end. A signwriter's lining brush has very long soft hairs; around 1.5 to 2 inches! The idea is that these long hairs give a very consistent paint flow when drawing very long fine lines, and (with practice) it's easy to turn a rounded corner. You can't do that with a draughtsman's lining pen. It'll keep running out of paint, leading to restart blotching and alignment issues, as well as being difficult to turn a consistent rounded corner. Bear in mind that the ruling pen was designed for use on softish paper surfaces on a drawing board. It's crucial to maintain contact of the two metal sides of the knib in contact with the item you're transferring paint onto. That's extremely difficult on a hard plastic model, especially when going over moulding details. Whereas a signwriter's lining brush will flow across the hard and uneven surface without difficulty. A professional signwriter uses a rest to guide the hand. A length of dowel with a large blob of blutac on the end works well. The blutac stops it slipping, while the towel guides the brush hand. The workpiece must be securely held, so it can't move around, as well as being presented at a convenient angle. Do you need the dexterity and artists' brush handling skills to use a signwriter's lining brush? No. It's a mechanical skill, like drawing a line with a ruler. It just takes a bit of practice. Then, you must be confident it's all going to work, and it will. Don't hesitate, is the key here. After all, if you falter, you can always quickly wipe off the wet paint with a thinner soaked rag, and do it again. But, as I say, believing in yourself (as you've shown in practicing) is what it's all about. Give a signwriter's lining brush a go. You'll be amazed at your own ability. Have fun, Rick

Ah, now this is a huge topic. As a quick Google search will show you, there are a huge number of different brushes for different uses. Using the right brush will make the job easier, and no single brush type is good for everything. I'd suggest Googling for Which Artists' Paintbrush, or similar. Probably watching the YouTube videos is best. Then, once you have a grasp of the basics, phone one of the bigger more specialist artists'suppliers (NOT the hobby or craft ones) and ask for advice. By doing a little background research first, you'll know which artists' suppliers know what they're talking about (too many don't). Then you'll know whether it's worth making a personal visit. A personal visit to a good artists' suppliers is time well spent. They should be able to show you what's what, and explain things like how to look after your expensive purchases. As for synthetic versus natural: as a professional artist and model maker, I use a mix of brushes for different purposes. But, if I had to choose, I'd say that natural hair or bristles are always superior to synthetic. Brush shape -- or, more accurately -- the length and shape of the hairs/bristles is also crucial. As the filaments act as a paint reservoir, controlling paint flow and ensuring you don't have to break off painting an area to continuously recharge the brush, it is crucial that you choose the correct shape and length of fibre. A good example is what to use to paint long fine line in "lining" a coach. A very fine 000 brush with short hairs might look easy to control. Problem is that it'll run out of paint after 1/2" or so. What you want is a signwriter's brush with very long filaments; maybe 1 1/2 inches! With practice (and use of a rest) you'll easily line a Mk.1 coach. The really good artists' suppliers have excellent technical advisors. It's a case of Use Them or Lose Them. If we don't demand such service, just buying off the Internet, we'll all lose out. Have fun, Rick

Replacing Graham Farish's horrible painted metal "coal" with a realistic REAL COAL load. I don't know about you guys, but I as extremely dissatisfied that Graham Farish have fitted another of their painted lumps of metal (as a way of weighting the tender) to represent a coal load. It looks like the kind of thing I'd expect to see in a 1960s model, and the lumps of coal are far too small for anything other than a preserved locomotive. Period locomotives were coaled with large (often enormous!) lumps of Welsh Steam Coal! So, as I'm a model designer, I immediately wanted to replace that painted lump with REAL COAL and do something about improving the shape of the hopper and detailing thereof. This particular project proved a real faff. There's not much space inside the tender due to the way GF have mounted the DCC chip blanking plug on the analogue model. I wanted my coal load to be slightly higher at the back, and to slope downwards towards the locomotive cab, representing a partially depleted coal load. I also used period photographs to get the correct scale look of those enormous chunks of Welsh coal. Here's the result... Not the best of photographs, but this is the replacement bunker with added depth --- to enable a downward slope --- at the front. There's actually a lip at the front, which isn't clear in the photographs, where the slope is actually deeper than it appears and some coal sits against the fireman's access doors. In order to accommodate the greater depth of the bunker, it was necessary to make a small cut-out in the shelf at the front of the tender. Easy enough, I just ran a sharp modelling knife along the front wall and across the shelf, then snapped the bit of plastic off. No real modelling skills required. See below. The original weight is approximately 7.5 grams. I tried fitting lead, but there's not much space in there, especially if you want to fit a DCC decoder. So I used Tungsten Putty from the fishing tackle shop. Tungsten Putty is 1.8 times heavier than lead and is easily fitted under the new Real Coal load and resin cast bunker. The final result is a massive improvement. I do need to remove a little of the coal, to better show the slope down towards the fireman's access doors, otherwise I'm happy with the result. You could make the resin bunker deeper, but this entails moving the DCC blanking plate (or DCC chip) by shortening the supporting legs and repositioning the blanking plate in a lower more horizontal position. Easy enough, and I may do this on the Mk.2 version. As I thought others might like this upgrade --- manufacturing the new coal bunker is a real faff and fitting Real Coal isn't within everyone's modelling comfort zone, so, as I produced a few extra castings of the bunker, I'm offering these --- with people's choice of period or modern coal size and including the Tungsten Putty --- on that well known Internet site. ...if there's sufficient interest, I'll sell the design to a UK model manufacturing company so they can put the drop-in REAL COAL upgrade into production. I may also tackle a few more of Graham Farish's otherwise excellent steam locomotives. Please "like" this post if you'd like to see this and similar upgrades being available from model shops. Rick P.S. have you ever wondered how the fireman got those enormous lumps of Dry Welsh Steam Coal out through that relatively tiny chute on the tender?

Actually (possibly slightly off topic) this raises a more general question about fire safety in the way we construct our layouts. We use wooden baseboard, often use expanded polystyrene to shape hills, etc., etc., then cover the whole thing with various materials to make our scenery and trees/grasses. And then we bury electrical equipment where it can't be seen. Eeek! There are various DIY application fire-retardant and fireproof materials out there. I've been doing a quick Google, and prices are very affordable at around £10. ...I think that's cheap versus the risk of losing your layout or your home/club. Anyway, I'll be phoning the UK's top experts in easy to apply fireproofing materials tomorrow. I'll then pass on their recommendations. My thinking is that dipping a tree in fire-retardant during manufacturing, or spraying a suitable material over the already built parts of the layout (including proofing areas where I've buried electrical components) isn't too onerous compared with the heartache of losing all the work I've put into my layout. I'm looking for products that won't affect the realism of the layout, and will get back to you tomorrow. Safety is No Accident, as they say, Rick

See for a view of how easily Wire Wool will ignite. And, don't forget, you don't need a 9V battery, Wire Wool is well known for Spontaneously Combusting. Note the very high temperature sparks, which will very rapidly spread the conflagration across any area you've got Wire Wool undergrowth, and be aware that the temperature of this fire is in excess of 1,000 °C Rick

DANGER - DO NOT USE WIRE WOOL AS SCENERY ! Wire Wool is Extremely Hazardous. Even the tiniest electrical spark (e.g. off an N gauge locomotive) is enough to ignite it. Wire Wool is also notorious for SPONTANEOUS IGNITION. If it oxidizes (rust) it may well start its own fire! Sometimes it ignites instantaneously, burning with incredible speed, at other times it'll smoulder for hours before surprising you with an intensely hot and rapidly spreading conflagration. In the workshop, it is treated as Extremely Hazardous. Thinking of spreading a layer of highly combustible material -- one that is known to spontaneously combust -- across your wooden layout? DON'T Wire wool must be stored in an airtight container and handled with extreme care. Rick

. A FEW MORE PICTURES TO GET YOUR JUICES FLOWING... By the way, if you just want thinner smoke deflectors while retaining the original Dapol handrails - as I need for 70021 "Morning Star" - then I've successfully removed the original Dapol smoke deflectors and filed them down to 1mm thickness. It takes forever, but is worth the effort. This is what I'll be doing with Morning Star because, as previously mentioned, she retained her original handrails throughout her life. She was also unique in retaining her lined express green livery throughout; other Britannia locomotives retained the express green paint, but only 70021 retained the ornate lining. Finally, notice the way the sunlight passes through those handhold cutouts to cast a dappled pattern across the boiler. I had her on my test track this afternoon, and the effect was even more impressive with those gleaming brass handholds and an ever changing pattern of dappled sunlight falling across the boiler and track. Enjoy, Rick

Springside lamps. Dapol fire irons. GF valves thingies on pistons. My coal ☺. Rick

These are a pre-release 'product testing' sample, all the way from Orkney. Being "all thumbs", I was tasked with testing that they're easy-to-fit by the average modeller. I understand they'll go on sale in the next few days. They're an official, "Dapol approved upgrade part" (probably the first in a series of upgrade parts for Dapol N scale locomotives), so keep checking the Dapol website or Googling "Dapol Britannia western region etched brass smoke deflectors", or similar, for more information. I'm told they'll definitely be available the week after Easter, if not sometime this week. But then, everyone is just a tad exhausted after Ally Pally, and we do have Easter coming up. Not sure how much else I can say under the forum rules on mentioning suppliers. So, I'll stick with just letting N scale modellers know what's in the pipeline, and that there are some really exciting 'model upgrade' packs coming along in 2016. Rick

. Superdetailling: Western Region modified Smoke Deflectors 70021 "Morning Star" (rear left) was unusual in that her smoke deflectors were never modified. While 70025 "Western Star" (front right), more typically, had her original handrails removed and replaced with the Western Region brass-lined pierced handholds, seen here with the brass linings gleaming in the sunlight. (In common with most of the Britannia fleet, 70025's brass nameplates were, sadly, removed in later life; although I'll be refitting the original Dapol nameplates on Western Star's new etched brass perforated smoke deflectors.) Enjoy, Rick

Disconnect the drive shaft. Run the motor at medium power. See if the motor still gets hot. If it doesn't, then (the usual cause) something is 'binding' inside the gearing or valve gear of the locomotive. The keeper plate has a dovetail clip at one end and a hook type clip at the other. You need to bend the keeper plate to put it back on the locomotive. Attach the dovetail end first (it pushes horizontally into place) then fit the front end. Also note that the transverse bars of the brake gear need refitting into their holes once the main clips are in place. By "waddle", if you mean that the locomotive can be twisted on the rails, then this is normal. However, if it is 'rocking' then the two usual causes are 'binding' of the gears inside the locomotive (where the torque of the drive shaft is causing a twisting action) or your traction tyres need replacing. Traction tyres should fit flush with the wheel rim. If they're contaminated with oil, the rubber 'balloons' and they no longer fit into the groove in the wheel rim. Clean away any sign of oil and replace with a new set of tyres or (if you can't get any) see my article on using heat-shrink insulation tubing. I've sent you a PM. Rick