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Hornby - New tooling - Large Prairie


Andy Y
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2 hours ago, The Johnster said:

Hmm.  You'd think so, but the way the hooman eye works and the hooman brane interprets the information means that a large 'block' of colour on something big such as a locomotive viewed from within 100yds range will look brighter than the exact same colour with the exact same finish in the exact same lighting on a model unless the model is viewed from within abut 3 inches.  

I meant with other model BR green locos - yes colours change with size; a good example of this is how dark an individual piece of roof sheeting can look yet how much lighter the whole roof appears. There was a whole series in one of the magazines many years ago (might have been in Scale Trains) on translating colours to models. 

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My 4160 arrived this lunchtime. I've test-run it and fitted a decoder (my preferred one, the DCCC ZN8D wouldn't fit because it is too thick so I went for a ZN8H). It looks like I've got a fair amount of work to do to stop it falling off the track and to make it a bit heavier, and so on.

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So I ventured  down to my local emporioum on Saturday afternoon to get a look at the green. I have some pretty poor photo's (but then it was tucked in a dark corner of the cabinet) but I would say it is pretty much the same shade as recent BR Castles. Thankfully the lining is orange and black rather than the tangerine shade used on 46211 - I tried to tempt myself with the latter but the lining really is jarring in my opinion  and the green is flat and too 'sage' for my eyes. I would say the Prairie is a better match for recent Hornby BR green loco's than 46211 if that helps.

 

How  two models come out at the same time from the same manufacturer with such obviously different interpretations of the same livery is a mystery to me. 

 

Will post pictures anyone wants to see them but I stress they are awful both for lighting and being through a glass  cabinet with reflections!

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3 minutes ago, MikeParkin65 said:

How  two models come out at the same time from the same manufacturer with such obviously different interpretations of the same livery is a mystery to me. 

 

Manufactured in different factories with different paint suppliers maybe.

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14 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

Manufactured in different factories with different paint suppliers maybe.

  
Indeed they are. I posted on this a while back,remarking on the difference in overall finish between the Prairie and the Lizzie.IMHO quite a quality gap.

 

And yet I am forgetting that the same factory that turns out acceptable red and blue also presents us with it seems the familiar Hornby green.Odd indeed.

Edited by Ian Hargrave
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2 hours ago, spamcan61 said:

Manufactured in different factories with different paint suppliers maybe.

But surely the colours have a specification  - discussions on this forum suggest there is actually a defined palette that industry selects from. I can understand Hornby might pick a different colour from the palette to Bachmann but not that Hornby specify different shades to different manufacturers. 

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45 minutes ago, MikeParkin65 said:

But surely the colours have a specification  - discussions on this forum suggest there is actually a defined palette that industry selects from. I can understand Hornby might pick a different colour from the palette to Bachmann but not that Hornby specify different shades to different manufacturers. 

Well there's what you specify, which may or may not mean anything to the supplier on the other side of the planet, then there's what actually turns up, and how you verify it meets your specification (via a third party i.e. the actual  model manufacturer). There are other variables like the base colour of the plastic, level of gloss, colour temperature of the light used to view the model etc.

Edited by spamcan61
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19 minutes ago, MikeParkin65 said:

But surely the colours have a specification  - discussions on this forum suggest there is actually a defined palette that industry selects from. I can understand Hornby might pick a different colour from the palette to Bachmann but not that Hornby specify different shades to different manufacturers. 

But even BR varied, so nothing new.

 

Pheonix do this as BR Green:

https://www.phoenix-paints.co.uk/products/p101

 

BR Green is supposed to be this:

https://www.e-paint.co.uk/Lab_values.asp?cRange=BS 381C&cRef=BS381C 224&cDescription=Deep bronze green

 

Which looks nothing like any loco green I have seen!

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Go back a few years to the release of the newly tooled Hornby King.Mainstream versions were dull,pale and drab. Then Locomotion launched their KGV ......with a gloss varnish finish which brought the whole model to life. But is it really necessary to consider this as the magic bullet if competitor Bachmann manage acceptable green finish without it ? 

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6 minutes ago, Ian Hargrave said:

Go back a few years to the release of the newly tooled Hornby King.Mainstream versions were dull,pale and drab. Then Locomotion launched their KGV ......with a gloss varnish finish which brought the whole model to life. But is it really necessary to consider this as the magic bullet if competitor Bachmann manage acceptable green finish without it ? 

 

What I find odd is that, as you say Bachmann's loco green is far better than recent Hornby efforts, yet on coaches Bachmann's BR(S) green is far too dark whereas Hornby's is pretty much spot on.

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15 minutes ago, Ian Hargrave said:

Go back a few years to the release of the newly tooled Hornby King.Mainstream versions were dull,pale and drab. Then Locomotion launched their KGV ......with a gloss varnish finish which brought the whole model to life. But is it really necessary to consider this as the magic bullet if competitor Bachmann manage acceptable green finish without it ? 

Precisely. Far by it from me to suggest industrial espionage but just take any Bachmann BR green loco from the past 10 years to your manufacturer(s) in China and say 'it needs to be this colour and this level of sheen please'. Simples!!

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8 minutes ago, MikeParkin65 said:

Precisely. Far by it from me to suggest industrial espionage but just take any Bachmann BR green loco from the past 10 years to your manufacturer(s) in China and say 'it needs to be this colour and this level of sheen please'. Simples!!

When viewed under lighting of a specific colour temperature by somebody with " perfect" colour vision. not so simples

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13 minutes ago, spamcan61 said:

When viewed under lighting of a specific colour temperature by somebody with " perfect" colour vision. not so simples

I'm thinking these things are scanned digitally rather than colour mix by human eyeball. I'm going back to 'simples'!

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8 hours ago, MikeParkin65 said:

I'm thinking these things are scanned digitally rather than colour mix by human eyeball. I'm going back to 'simples'!

But this requires not only the colour to be correct in the first place, but the scanner needs to be calibrated for it, and then every monitor on every computer or smartphone involved in the process of transferring the colour from the original scan, assuming that to be accurate which is by no means a given, to the final production of the model and the colour of the plastic.  I'm going back to 'not so simples'.  

 

There's a lot more to this colour business than meets the eye, if you see what I mean, and as I said trying to pin exact colours down is a bit like chasing the foo foo bird...

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Got my BR lined green one from Derails yesterday. The green is slightly darker and probably slightly bluer than my Bachmann 45xx in the same livery (the colour of which I'm happy with) in natural daylight.  it's the lining that's quite different though. The black lines are far more prominent and the orange barely visible on the 61xx compared to the 45xx.  I suspect the reality with the linings is that both are slightly overscale anyway.

I'll post some snaps later.

 

If anyone wants more information about assessing colour and colour differences, I was a colourmatcher in the plastics industry for over 10 years, for much of it supplying engineering thermoplastics into the highly demanding automotive sector to very tight colour tolerances. One simply did not go to Ford Berlin to present your latest matches to Frau Pfister without having done a selection of very good matches for her to choose from. All you had to do then was reproduce the lab sample in production :blink:.

 

 

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On 11/09/2020 at 19:30, melmerby said:

 

I always remember ex GWR paintshop jobs always looked brighter/richer than ex LMS paintshop jobs using what was supposed to be the same BS colour

Crewe and Swindon used different primer and undercoat IIRC. The brass and copper trimmings and amount of lining also change the perception and then there is the frequency and degree of enthusiasm applied to cleaning.

Add to that the effect of age on the varnish. For example what is the correct colour of a green Southern coach, given that it could be freshly painted then before the next scheduled full repaint 10 years later it would have a retouch and revarnish up to three times. 

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18 hours ago, Ian Hargrave said:

Go back a few years to the release of the newly tooled Hornby King.Mainstream versions were dull,pale and drab. Then Locomotion launched their KGV ......with a gloss varnish finish which brought the whole model to life. But is it really necessary to consider this as the magic bullet if competitor Bachmann manage acceptable green finish without it ? 

The gloss did rescue the King and they looked magnificent. Having said that, I don’t think I like the idea of all my models being gloss. I’m not qualified to judge the authenticity of grouping-era liveries but I do find the Bachmann finishes very appealing.

 

Going back to Hornby’s original eight-coupled GWR tank locomotives, I found the finish very disappointing. Now, however, I seem to have got used to it, whilst at the same time not being wildly enthusiastic. An awful lot depends on what one looks for. There is a photograph of 4283 (I think – the book is hiding somewhere) in Brian Haresnape’s book on Great Western liveries. What struck me most as lacking from the model was the waviness of the tank sides and the nuts holding the motion in place, neither of which attracted particular ire from modellers who focused on other features.

 

It is very strange that Hornby seems to have succeeded with LMS red, LNER green and even BR express blue but just cannot seem to master dark greens. The new GWR Prairies are by no means bad but are not as pleasing as the Bachmann shade.

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Taken today indoors but in strong natural light using a DSLR.

The green looks quite acceptable to me, although quite a matt finish as usual these days.

 

 

IMG_0233.JPG

Edited by PMP99
corrected spelling
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2 hours ago, PMP99 said:

One from the other side.

 

IMG_0242.JPG

Thanks for those PMP - allowing for the effects of lighting, camera, and computer monitor, it looks pretty good to me. I shall find out more once mine has reached Alton and I'm able to collect it but judging by your two photos I'm unlikely to be disapointed by the colour.

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3 hours ago, No Decorum said:

The gloss did rescue the King and they looked magnificent. Having said that, I don’t think I like the idea of all my models being gloss.

I don't like the idea of any of my models being gloss and routinely apply matt or at least satin varnish to any that are (mostly die cast road vehicles nowadays).  I have a theory, bourn out by observation but of course I might be seeing things differently to other people so my observations on the matter are not objectively validated, that even shiny objects like cars look fairly flat in finish from any distance, say about 20 feet, more so on dull days.  Brand new ones, like ex-works or museum locomotives, gleam, but a few day's uses takes the edge off that!  This happened even to Kings, which were always clean in service.

 

I prefer a satin semi-matt finish for clean locos and passenger stock, and light the layout to simulate cloudy conditions with the light diffused as much as possible and attempt to eliminate shadows.  My lighting is led anglepoises from Maplin's; these have 3 level setting and can be switched between warm, cool, or mixed setting, so I can replicate the impression of different weather conditions, but the South Wales Valleys are notoriously wet and grey...  

 

A gloss finish will have the effect of making the colour look darker, while a weathered loco on a dry day will look several levels lighter, even in similar lighting conditions.  Black, which the majority of my locos are, is a particularly hard colour to achieve; the trick is in the finish, not the colour.  Gloss black is very difficult to achieve, often appearing a dark blue, as photographers of locos on heritage railways well know, and weathered black is really grey in appearance, as it was in reality on dirty locos.

 

A useful trick with black liveried steam locos is to give the smokebox a slightly different finish on some of them.  Smokeboxes, especially the doors, got very hot in service and shed repaintings were common, with a finish noticeably flatter or shinier than the rest of the loco.

Edited by The Johnster
Bloody autocorrect...
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No doubt contradicting my own arguments but this photo I took at Hereford station on the 23rd July shows 2 locos painted (I believe) the same green about 3 years apart. Being preserved these locos will of course get nothing like the weathering in service locos would have received back in the day. 

9055720B-9F79-4EF3-ADCC-81253D825D73.jpeg

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