Hornby lav windows

[spikey]

The longer I have my lovely Hornby R4521A Gresley suburban lav comp, the more I'm getting irritated by the over-white over-bright bog windows.  And actually, the same goes for my R4719 Maunsell brake comp too. 

 

I'd be alright opening them up to see what's what if I knew how they go together, but I don't, so can any kind soul please tell me (a) how you access the interior without damaging anything, and (b) what is the best way to quieten down those windows?

[jonny777]

Couldn't you just give them a light brushing with a dark weathering powder on the outsides?

[Steamport Southport]

Aren't they meant to be like that?

 

http://www.srpsmuseum.org.uk/10077.htm

 

http://www.llangollen-railway.org.uk/lnerveh.html

 

https://www.nymr.co.uk/lner-coach-association-lnerca

 

 

 

Jason

Edited November 25, 2018 by Steamport Southport

[spikey]

Aren't they meant to be like that?

 

I don't care if they are or not, but in any case it's hard to say judging by those pictures, on account of how they've been processed to look better online.  I spent countless hours in the late 1950s trainspotting and I walked past many a Gresley suburban in various stations, but I don't recall any lav windows actually looking anything like that.  White opaque glass yes, but not that glaring ultra-white white once they'd been in service for a few years.

 

Be that as it may, they're too white to run on my railway as they are, and I wouldn't fancy applying anything to the outside to quiet them down unless I was going to weather the whole coach, which I'm not going to do.

 

If anybody can kindly tell me for sure how to access the interior of these two (R4521a and R4719), I'll take a squint inside and see what's what.

Edited November 25, 2018 by spikey

[The Johnster]

Assuming you can get inside the coach to work on it, something that seems to be becoming harder deze daze, you have several courses of action.  You can cut the offending white plastic out and replace it with plastiglaze or any piece of clear plastic from packaging that is reasonably stiff.  There are now several things you can do to the replacement.  To represent frosted glass, I simply smear the inside surface with superglue, which will put exactly the right sort of haze on it.  You can paint the interior surface in whatever colour you think looks right, or glue tissue to it, but do the interior surface to maintain the correct reflectivity on the outside

 

While you're in there, you can do any other interior detailing that takes your fancy, and add any passengers you think need to be sitting in the compartments, not forgetting to stick a fag in the mouth of at least one in a smoking compartment.  I like to paint the interior underside of the roof white as well, prototypical or not (it normally is) as you can't actually see this from most normal viewing angles and it helps to spread the ambient light around in there.

[number6]

Fibreglass pencil.

Run it over the inside of the white window until it gets to the opacity you like.

Job done.

[MikeTrice]

Just to put things in perspective here is the Sleeping Car Section which is part of the NRM collection currently in storage:

[Ian Kirk]

There is a big difference between frosted glass and the white glass used by the GNR and LNER. For frosted glass I used to use a bit of tracing paper (remember that?) behind the clear glazing. For the white glass I merely gave the inside a coat of white paint.

 

best wishes,

 

Ian

[spikey]

Thanks for the suggestions, gents.  All I have to do now is work out how to gain access without gubbering anything up in the process ...

[JZ]

" White opaque glass yes, but not that glaring ultra-white white once they'd been in service for a few years."

 

" unless I was going to weather the whole coach, which I'm not going to do."

 

 

Isn't that a bit of a contradiction?

 

Besides, the white is on the inside, so would not weather to anywhere near the same extent as it would if it was applied to the outside.

 

Edit: Just found this https://www.steve-banks.org/prototype-and-traffic/292-lner-restaurant-triplet-sets while searching for something else. Gresley windows stand out due to their whiteness, even when not in the first flush of youth. Further looking through my set of Railway wonders of the World shows the same. Did the LNER actually use white glass?

Edited November 26, 2018 by JZ

[spikey]

Isn't that a bit of a contradiction?

 

Nope.  I just made the mistake of entering into a discussion about the prototypes, when in this instance what kind of glass was used and how true to it the Hornby models are is irrelevant to me.  All that matters to me is that the lav windows on my carriages detract from my enjoyment of them because they stand out like a doggy's danglers, so I wish to quieten them down.

 

As I said above, the question now is simply how do I gain access to the interiors with minimum risk of jiggering anything?

[JZ]

 

 

As I said above, the question now is simply how do I gain access to the interiors with minimum risk of jiggering anything?

On most modern Hornby coaches there is a tab in the corner, gently nudge them in and the coach should come apart.

[spikey]

Cheers for that.  I'll give it a go when the planets are in the right conjunction and see how I get on.