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Toms LNER Workbench - Comet V2 Chassis


grob1234
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Thanks mate... isn't Dave in the construction trade? I'm sure I could line a locomotive for him if he agrees to build my house when I return from Hong Kong. That's a fair trade is it not?!

 

 

A 2 Bedroom will cost you a G1 0-4-4 in full GN lining, a 3 bed is a pair of A5 7'6" singles,  and a 5 bed is Great Northern* in full GN lining.  . . . .I know I can build a house quicker than me lining.

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Hello All,

 

One of the things I knew I had to master if I was to become a decent LNER kit builder was lining. Now I know it is possible to get transfers for this but they will be expensive over time, and do not come in all wheel sizes. I’m definitely not saying I have mastered lining, but with a bit of perseverance, and a number of errors I have managed to achieve the following. Bit of a cruel enlargement, but at 3ft and a scale 90mph I think these wheels will just about look ok. The main thing is that I have a method that is repeatable and that is adaptable to any wheel size I choose. It will be interesting to see how I get on with some of the trickier edge lining on an actual locomotive!

 

attachicon.gifIMG_2367.JPG

 

Seeing those cheers me up. I'm in the process of trying to line the wheels on a DJH Atlantic that came to me as a built-up model and which went into a fairly plain version of LNER livery some time ago so as to be available for Grantham at shows. I really don't want to take the rods and the coupled wheels off the loco again, but lining the wheels satisfactorily in situ isn't easy. Getting a nice genuinely smooth basic paint finish on the wheel rims first has helped a little, after my first attempt at lining only revealed the irregularities caused by traces of the original builder's balance weight glue under my seemingly smooth green paint!

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I’m finding handrails, particularly around the smoke box, extremely tricky too.

 

Best to choose locos that don't have tricky hand rail arrangements like the C1 I'm making... I always need at least 3 go's to get curved ones right!

A 2 Bedroom will cost you a G1 0-4-4 in full GN lining, a 3 bed is a pair of A5 7'6" singles,  and a 5 bed is Great Northern* in full GN lining.  . . . .I know I can build a house quicker than me lining.

 

I'll deal on that, I'll go for one of each!!

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Seeing those cheers me up. I'm in the process of trying to line the wheels on a DJH Atlantic that came to me as a built-up model and which went into a fairly plain version of LNER livery some time ago so as to be available for Grantham at shows. I really don't want to take the rods and the coupled wheels off the loco again, but lining the wheels satisfactorily in situ isn't easy. Getting a nice genuinely smooth basic paint finish on the wheel rims first has helped a little, after my first attempt at lining only revealed the irregularities caused by traces of the original builder's balance weight glue under my seemingly smooth green paint!

 

The key in my immeasurably tiny experience in lining wheels is actually the preparation. Markits wheels I presume? I got on OK with the wheels I had, but if I did them again, and in the future, I would definitely fill the seam line where the insulating mazac (sp?) is, and then I would sand smooth, prime with etch primer, check, possibly sand smooth once more down to about 800 or even 1200 grit so the primer is almost shiny, then I reckon a thin coat of green (whatever shade), and then, personally I would go over it in a gloss acrylic coat. Long sentence?! However, once enamel paint is hardened (I'm talking Pheonix Precision here) can you remove small mistakes with enamel thinner without cutting into the paint below?

 

Oh and I am glad I cheered you - I wish my wife could be cheered up so easily! (I'm kidding of course - sorry ladies!)

Edited by grob1234
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A 2 Bedroom will cost you a G1 0-4-4 in full GN lining, a 3 bed is a pair of A5 7'6" singles,  and a 5 bed is Great Northern* in full GN lining.  . . . .I know I can build a house quicker than me lining.

How much for a 4 bed detached with double garage and workshop? Do you provide the plot as well, in a location of my choice? If so I would even design an etched kit for you and get it professionally painted!

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Is your white lining paint Precision? Whatever it is, how does it flow from the pen, straight from the tin? I've been finding that recent Humbrol white, whether matt or gloss, is so thick in the tin that very careful thinning is required before it will flow from a bow pen, but it is crucial of course to limit the thinning! The matt is virtually hopeless even then in my recent experience, the gloss being just about tolerable.

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Is your white lining paint Precision? Whatever it is, how does it flow from the pen, straight from the tin? I've been finding that recent Humbrol white, whether matt or gloss, is so thick in the tin that very careful thinning is required before it will flow from a bow pen, but it is crucial of course to limit the thinning! The matt is virtually hopeless even then in my recent experience, the gloss being just about tolerable.

 

I'm using a brand new tin of Humbrol gloss white. Contrary to Rathbones advice I have had to thin it, otherwise you could stand a spoon up in it, it's so thick!! The black is better but still needs some thinning. Both are probably still a touch too thick, but rather that than too thin, and they are flowing nicely from the pen if I am able to work quick enough so that the paint doesn't dry at the tip.

 

I was looking for images of C1's to see about the red lining and I came across your model on the Bachmann atlantic thread. It is really lovely - what paint do you use for the red lining? Also how did you like around the plugs etc, looks very very neat!!

 

I'm not saying anything quality, but does anyone remember those card kits from the 70's.........

 

Sadly not Dave, I missed out on the 70's by 2 years....

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You're so lucky. You missed Flares and the Osmonds.

 

The card kits were bowed walls and nothing on the inside.

I’m guessing you are referring to the Superquick pre-printed card building range. They were very popular amongst modelers in the 60’s and 70’s. They also sold pre-printed brick papers for scratch builders. The late Chris Matthewman used these papers to great effect on his three exhibition layouts: Striving, Strove, and Striven. He used card from breakfast cereal boxes as the base material and not a bowed wall in sight. Striven is now owned by Val Ashby and is permanently installed intheir house in Leeds.

 

Frank

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I had heard rumors of items such as flares and groups called the Osmons... I suppose as I have heard the rumour more than once, it must be true!

 

Somebody asked me who Bruce Springsteen was a little while back. :(

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I’m guessing you are referring to the Superquick pre-printed card building range. They were very popular amongst modelers in the 60’s and 70’s. They also sold pre-printed brick papers for scratch builders. The late Chris Matthewman used these papers to great effect on his three exhibition layouts: Striving, Strove, and Striven. He used card from breakfast cereal boxes as the base material and not a bowed wall in sight. Striven is now owned by Val Ashby and is permanently installed intheir house in Leeds.

 

Frank

 

In truth they were probably not a bad kit, but in the hands of a 14 year old they didn't really stand a chance. I do remember using some pretty good brick papers at the  time.  All of this came from Bryan Scale Models in Midland Road Bedford, a most salubrious area then and now.

 

Somebody asked me who Bruce Springsteen was a little while back. :(

 

 

Go on then, who is he?

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I was looking for images of C1's to see about the red lining and I came across your model on the Bachmann atlantic thread. It is really lovely - what paint do you use for the red lining? Also how did you like around the plugs etc, looks very very neat!!

 

 

Very kind of you to say so. Humbrol gloss red for the red lining was my usual at the time, although more recently I tend to add a bit of yellow. The red I have still seems to flow very nicely allowing knife-edge lines to be drawn.

 

Lining the plugs is always a combination of faffing around and bodging. Whatever I can do with a bow pen and a OOO brush in a single hit with each colour, followed by removal of splodges with a spirit dampened brush or small solid implement, with delicate over-painting of parts of the green and black areas if I simply can't get the lines narrow enough and neat enough by any other method! I've a feeling that I may on one loco have even resorted to cutting tiny pieces of the lining corners that feature on the Modelmaster (now so-called Kemco) sheet and painstakingly steering those into position, 4 pieces per oval plug (2 larger radius and 2 small radius). Tediously time consuming.....

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I've a feeling that I may on one loco have even resorted to cutting tiny pieces of the lining corners that feature on the Modelmaster (now so-called Kemco) sheet and painstaking steering those into position, 4 pieces per oval plug (2 larger radius and 2 small radius). Tediously time consuming.....

I've a pen that I aim to have a go at lining with in the not too distant future (especially with Tony Wright's and Ian Rathbone's video not on YouTube), but I've sometimes thought maybe some more specific transfers could be done. Some time ago Dave and I looked at someone providing a reasonably priced printing service in the Netherlands with an eye on GNR transfers that better fit locos like the G1. I did try using white backed pape and a laser printer, but the paper was pretty thick and like applying copier paper to the side of the loco.

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I've a pen that I aim to have a go at lining with in the not too distant future (especially with Tony Wright's and Ian Rathbone's video not on YouTube), but I've sometimes thought maybe some more specific transfers could be done. Some time ago Dave and I looked at someone providing a reasonably priced printing service in the Netherlands with an eye on GNR transfers that better fit locos like the G1. I did try using white backed pape and a laser printer, but the paper was pretty thick and like applying copier paper to the side of the loco.

 

There is (was?) only one way to home-produce waterslide transfers at anywhere like a viable cost, unless you're into screen-printing.

 

Back in the late 1990s, a Japanese company called Alps produced what was - at that time - the cutting edge in photo-quality home colour printing; and at an affordable price; (around £150 for the printer).

 

In order to enable users to apply photo-quality images to darker substrate material, they included a white primer to allow the image to be opaque.

 

Purely by chance, that system was exactly what was needed to produce opaque, white or colour waterslide transfers.

 

The Alps system has now been superceded for many years and, despite being (briefly) adopted by such major players as Oki and Kodak, is now history. No-one is now using the Alps technology to produce a home printer that can print white and opaque coloured waterslide transfers.

 

A few of us aficionados have stockpiled printers and consumable to allow us to continue transfer production for a few years yet, but the (very short) era of being able to produce one's own transfers is, sadly, long gone.

 

..... and before anyone mentions Crafty Computer paper - it has severe limitations compared to the Alps product.

 

Regards,

John Isherwood,

Cambridge Custom Transfers.

https://www.cctrans.org.uk/

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I may well have aired this thought previously, but I wonder if it would be possible to put together a logical set of diameters of circles, and a limited number of sizes of small ellipses, and find a producer of transfers willing to turn out sheets of these printed as narrow white lining alone. These could serve as an aid to the neat lining of wheel rims, wheel bosses, firebox mudholes and probably one or two other things I haven't thought about. The various circles could perhaps be nested on the sheet, or the larger ones printed as quarter-circles or maybe one-sixth of a circle at a time, to save space on the sheet and ease handling of the transfer. Although the black element of the livery on a green loco would still have to be added carefully by hand, the white transfer line would guarantee a nice neat edge, and by printing only the white part as a transfer the problem of wanting the black on one side of the white for some situations, and on the opposite side in other situations, need not bother the maker of the transfers.

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I don't know where, and could be imagining it but I think I've seen a generic transfer pack that included mudhole etc. It's not fox but not sure who else it could have been!

 

edit: had a hunt round but thinking I must have imagined it :(

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I don't know where, and could be imagining it but I think I've seen a generic transfer pack that included mudhole etc. It's not fox but not sure who else it could have been!

 

edit: had a hunt round but thinking I must have imagined it :(

Fox FRH4354/10A?

 

This has some, which I only know about because they are on a lining sheet I bought for a NER Class G1 (LNER D23).

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I may well have aired this though previously, but I wonder if it would be possible to put together a logical set of diameters of circles, and a limited number of sizes of small ellipses, and find a producer of transfers willing to turn out sheets of these printed as narrow white lining alone. These could serve as an aid to the neat lining of wheel rims, wheel bosses, firebox mudholes and probably one or two other things I haven't thought about. The various circles could perhaps be nested on the sheet, or the larger ones printed as quarter-circles or maybe one-sixth of a circle at a time, to save space on the sheet and ease handling of the transfer. Although the black element of the livery on a green loco would still have to be added carefully by hand, the white transfer line would guarantee a nice neat edge, and by printing only the white part as a transfer the problem of wanting the black on one side of the white for some situations, and on the opposite side in other situations, need not bother the maker of the transfers.

 

Graeme,

 

You're by no means the first to suggest a sheet of circle transfers for splasher and wheel lining - and I've had a go at it, too. There are, however, technical problems which preclude me from providing such a sheet.

 

Firstly, a sheet of nested circles seems the most efficient solution, but the individual circles / arcs have to be cut out; at which point they become decidedly unco-operative when asked to retain their intended radii. Plus, the unused portions from within the circles already cut out are difficult to store without damage.

 

Secondly, and more to the point when it comes to producing transfers with Alps technology, the printing action when producing continuous lines can microscopically 'drag' the waterslide paper out of register. Not a lot - but enough to be noticeable.

 

Without wishing to become to technical, the Alps printing system comprises different coloured ink 'ribbons', akin to typewriter ribbons. Each ribbon is printed in turn, and a print head with miniscule heated elements prints each pixel; successive print passes with various 'ribbons' builds up the colour image.

 

For photographs, for which the Alps system was developed, this is great, as the image rarely consists of large areas where the same ribbon is printed continuously - so no print head 'drag' occurs.

 

For transfer printing, however, anything other than text, (numbers, tonnages, etc.), can require continous application of the printhead to a single 'ribbon' - especially for lines. The result is that, during successive colour printing passes, the print head 'drags' the paper out of registration.

 

I have tried, several times, to print for my own use circles and rectangular lining panels - without success.

 

What can be done successfully is to print horizontal lines for coach lining, as any loss of registration is across the sheet, and is not apparent. I have also managed to print radius corners for panel lining, as the amount of 'drag' produced when printing individual corners is not significant.

 

As to single colour white circles, to aid hand lining of wheels and splashers, it could be done - but I doubt that there would be a sufficient number of modellers who would be happy to apply the other colours by hand.

 

So - it's not for want of trying that I do not offer wheel and splasher lining transfers!

 

Regards,

John Isherwood,

Cambridge Custom Transfers.

https://www.cctrans.org.uk/

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Fox FRH4354/10A?

 

This has some, which I only know about because they are on a lining sheet I bought for a NER Class G1 (LNER D23).

Might be - don't recall it being a specific loco but a string of them - but you're probably right :)

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