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Yes, over humbrol and it goes misty white, I’ve had one 47 do this.

 

i have managed to remove over varnishing with t cut in the past when I sprayed too much and it went orange peel.

 

the problem I feel if you gloss over now, is you are glossing a colour you don’t want ( ie misty green ) and you’ll just end up with glossy misty green, it won’t take it back to the proper green tone,

 

so personally I’d experiment with getting rid of the unwanted first 

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10 hours ago, Afroal05 said:

Thanks NL, glad someone else has had similar findings. It looks like the time to invest in an airbrush is getting unavoidably closer!

 

Go for it when you're able to, i've been airbrushing now for over 5 years and I've never looked back. It can be a pain having to clean it out after every use, but it'll be worth it knowing you can achieve much better results.

 

As rob has suggested, youll probably have to paint over your current finnish as varnishing at this stage wont remove the pale look. You could perhaps go over the varnish with enamel or acrylic thinners and maybe remove it, but tis may take off the paint as well possibly sadly

 

NL

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On 07/02/2020 at 16:44, rob D2 said:

Yes, over humbrol and it goes misty white, I’ve had one 47 do this.

 

i have managed to remove over varnishing with t cut in the past when I sprayed too much and it went orange peel.

 

the problem I feel if you gloss over now, is you are glossing a colour you don’t want ( ie misty green ) and you’ll just end up with glossy misty green, it won’t take it back to the proper green tone,

 

so personally I’d experiment with getting rid of the unwanted first 

 

That's good to know, thanks Rob. I shall try stripping some off... at the very least it'll make an interesting post in the future!

 

23 hours ago, NickL2008 said:

 

Go for it when you're able to, i've been airbrushing now for over 5 years and I've never looked back. It can be a pain having to clean it out after every use, but it'll be worth it knowing you can achieve much better results.

 

As rob has suggested, youll probably have to paint over your current finnish as varnishing at this stage wont remove the pale look. You could perhaps go over the varnish with enamel or acrylic thinners and maybe remove it, but tis may take off the paint as well possibly sadly

 

NL

 

It sounds like the original paintwork is all but ruined sadly. But a lesson learnt! Fortunately the transfer pack was for a full loco respray anyway so all of the existing details should be replaceable. I'll have a go at trying to remove some of the misty finish and report back!

 

Thanks all.

Al

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1 hour ago, rob D2 said:

Oh, I don’t know, once you get through the varnish, t cut will polish the actual paint so I reckon it’s recoverable still.

 

give me a Shout if you want any help 

Agree with this, go easy with T-Cut and you should be able to get back to the original finish, maybe not perfect, but enough that you could the disguise it with a bit of weathering?

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  • 2 months later...

It has been a while since I have put out an update on my progress. Work got really busy and then... err... we now run less trains than we did before and most of them empty. One way or another I'm 'working from home' which when you work in a Control room doesn't really work! So, plenty of time to get some modelling done:

 

GWR HST powercars/47323 - No progress on these, they need the awful varnish I spoke about before stripping, I have some T cut and I just need a stiff drink and some patience to tackle them.

 

37602 - Again, no progress, I have acquired some LEDs of different hues with both a warm yellow/white and a bright white to represent bright LEDs and bulbs. I have also bought some fibre optic after recommendation from Jack and at some point will attempt to scratch build new top light housings.

One of the noses had a chunk of paint missing after the crocodile clip it was held in was a little severe. As I walked to the garage to give another coat of yellow I dropped one of the noses and it shattered on a paving stone. I tried to glue it back together with plastic weld - a solution I haven't worked with before - and it too was a learning experience, it caused the paint to bubble and melt and really I just want to strip all of the paint off this nose and start again! Unfortunately I use Isopropyl alcohol and funnily enough that's somewhat scarce due to the pandemic. I bought some from ebay (that wasn't price gouged) only to find it was a fraudulent seller. Until I can get more IPA anything that needs paint stripping will have to wait.

 

IMG_20200419_1759193.jpg.1c3694f88611da24d2c607893a98005f.jpg

 

47828 - Arguably my longest running project to create a DRS dummy runner. It's still sat on the back of the workbench. It has acquired far too many coats of paint over the years and needs some stripping back.

 

DBSO - Needs filling, filing and fettling as it isn't to the standard I want it to be, it probably needs the yellow stripping off the nose. Until then it sits with the 47 at the back of the bench.

 

So what was the most logical next step? A new project! Before Christmas I bought a Silver Fox models kit for a Class 89, something I have had my eye on for years. I have always been fascinated by this unusual machine despite having never seen it in person. Kicking myself a little bit that whilst I liked trains I never really did any 'spotting' when I lived in Yorkshire in the 00s and it was trundling around with GNER!

89001 in either its BR guise or its GNER guise don't really fit the time frame I model so a little bit of a 'what if' scenario has been called for. Clearly I have a fascination/long running interest in DRS and after stumbling across a picture of the DRS liveried Class 90 I had an idea - what if DRS had acquired the Badger?  They've acquired a fair few different locos over the years so for me they've acquired and repaired 89001...

 

The kit comes as a body, replacement bogie sides, replacement underframe sides, some transparent plastic for windscreens and some mouldings for the pantograph well. There is no chassis or pantograph. The instructions advise that the body is given a good go over with a scalpel blade to get rid of the flash and excess plastic. Here's the shell during that session:

 

IMG_20191217_1301159.jpg.b6d307369955cf91475423f9af46ac45.jpg

 

Next I primed the body and decided what I wanted the livery to look like - DRS blue with small yellow panel like the DRS 90 - and masked off the yellow panel, described as 'DRS Economy'. (I touched up the bits of primer I had sanded back too.)

 

IMG_20200325_1441385.jpg.1aaef23badd4cba1c92d9621a929d852.jpg

 

The kit recommends a Lima or Hornby class 47 chassis (if I remember correctly the website years ago recommended a class 66 chassis too). Ideally I wanted a Railroad 47 as it would have a new motor but I wasn't intending on paying £75 for a new one. I had been tracking one on ebay a while back but alas it had gone. Long story short I found one that sounded well looked after and it arrived quickly (remarkable considering I've been waiting for some things for over a fortnight). After a quick test confirmed the loco still runs well it was stripped down and that is the end of the Riviera Trains 47/8!

Posed with the replacement underframe and bogie pieces:

 

IMG_20200417_1636359.jpg.ceb71205b14f867221edb2bb689571ba.jpg

 

The instructions advise that only the face of the underframe box is cut away and then the replacement faces can be stuck on, if I have done it correctly it would have looked like this...

 

IMG_20200417_1707076.jpg.56fa157c660019536d779439a0553ae1.jpg

IMG_20200417_1707430.jpg.dbe0fd8b5bdfb6cbde4229ee631184c9.jpg

 

To me there was far too much obvious material below the bottom of the new parts and in the picture above where there is some kind of disc at the end (later analysed to be a cylinder - main res perhaps?) it just didn't look right to me at all. I decided to get the cutting disc back out (the dremel proving much faster although a lot messier than the hacksaw) and took several more mm out of the underframe box cutting it off completely to work with it and file the edges smooth.

After inspecting more reference photos (ideally in GNER condition - as recent as possible) I noticed that there was not as much in the way of underframe boxes as the moulding suggested, the reservoir appears to be separate from the boxes and with a little space between. To try and replicate this I filed away most of the box next to the cylinder. I will either separate them both completely or keep it this thin, I will make a decision when they are painted up in black and I can line them up with the chassis. I'm tempted to split them and create a tank somehow - I haven't figured out how yet! (Brass tube?) This of course meant that the rectangular underframe from the Cl. 47 needed further trimming :

 

IMG_20200417_1758274.jpg.2bec674b59df352d673b3f7ee6eecf60.jpg

 

The main bodyshell has now had a coat of blue. Towards the end of last year I found an alternative shade of blue to replace the one I had used previously for DRS colours, this one is darker and a better match when compared to Bachmann's shade:

 

IMG_20200419_1726078.jpg.bfb8ee1eba72904dd5ea47ee7ffa23b6.jpg 

The last challenge I have faced for the time being is the pantograph! I am struggling to find clear images of the pantograph-well to understand the arrangement of lumps and bits in there and I also needed to source a pantograph. The Hornby spare for their long produced class 90 is out of production according to Peter's Spares so after a few failed bids on that well know auction site I bought a scrap shell of a class 90. The picture showed a pantograph but little did I know it is a plastic moulding. I am looking for a pantograph that can be raised/lowered as I will be fitting catenary to my layout in the future! This is very frustrating. I have a working Hornby Class 90 that I don't use a huge amount and I could look at doing a pantograph swap although this isn't really what I was looking to do!

 

I have sent an email to someone about custom transfers, just awaiting a reply.

 

And that's it, all caught up to date!*

(*Not quite, there are 2x 37s and a 5 car unit project that I haven't ever mentioned but they'll get their day, they're on the back of the bench too, the unit at the very start of the project and the 37s awaiting paint stripping as I've put too much on.)

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Hello Al, some nice little projects btw!

 

For stripping paint, you could use Phoenix Precision's Superstrip, I believe it's in stock and you can find it here.

 

Due to Covid-19, mail order will take a while - I'm still waiting for some paint I ordered more than 2 weeks ago!

 

Neverless, good luck with all your projects! I've made plenty of (stupid) mistakes throughout my modelling life, so you're not alone mate!

 

Jules

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  • 3 weeks later...

A few weeks on and it's been a relatively quiet few weeks considering the lack of distractions from modelling time! I've had a kind of writers block so haven't really had any ideas about how to progress projects or a clear vision about how I'm going to achieve something but here's what has happened...

 

Firstly a quick fix. Having spent time working on the layout recently and running most of my stock to give it a spin around the layout I dug out my Dapol Class 73 which has never run properly and was very jerky. For a new model I was quite disappointed. Fortunately RMWeb is such a huge bank of knowledge I found the answer -  the pickups on the 73s are rather naff and the copper strip quite easily slips out of position from the pickups. The solution was to strip down the bogies and create new/additional pickups using brass wire. I have never attempted anything like this so was somewhat apprehensive.

The brass wire I had on hand was .3mm and a gentle brush with the hacksaw was used to slice into the bogie sides as seen below. The wire was then soldered to the copper pickup strip and bent to zig zag out onto the inside of the wheels. I did two pickups (one each side) for each bogie).

I cannot take credit for this solution, it is a fellow RMWebber whose name I cannot remember but who has detailed this more thoroughly on here somewhere! 

I must say that dismantling the bogies and removing the cosmetic elements was very difficult and not easy when you have a pair of hands as dexterous as clubs! A few fine details went whizzing off across the desk and had to be glued back on afterwards.

 

IMG_20200423_1518571.jpg.351d8d70b88443a0cb53c984c729657c.jpg

 

A rather naked below the waist 73 went for a test run and runs properly for the first time ever. Some fettling was required as initially the brass pickups were pushing out onto the wheel too much causing a lot of resistance.

 

IMG_20200423_1504121.jpg.bfaa9cbf7a30d90f7053cd51536b5c82.jpg

 

Cosmetic bogie sides reinstalled and job done.

 

89001 has had the new bogie sides painted and fitted. The simplest solution to removing the old sides was to take the hacksaw to them and just slice all the way through until they pinged off.

 

1375301631_IMG_20200505_1343068lo.jpg.90e6c8a33e0639d4a6b63a5307e10dec.jpg

 

With the new bogie sides having previously been sprayed black they were fitted with poly cement and nudged around until they looked like they were in the right place. The rookie mistake I made was to cut all 4 sides from both bogies before sticking any of the new sides on, had I kept some of the original sides on first I could have used them as a rough guide for where the new ones should sit. 

 

IMG_20200505_2201424.jpg.7182aa39e8efafcebdbcf74306b4ed1e.jpg

 

The poor light probably doesn't help you form an opinion there! I did push the bogies around the desk and they look alright. I then pushed the bogies back into the chassis, plonked the body on top and slid the underframe boxes into position but sat on the desk for a rough work in progress shot.

 

IMG_20200505_1836104.jpg.709bed834a879f434af80d70d4e9766b.jpg

 

The underframe boxes were sprayed black about a week ago and today I worked on gluing the pieces to what was left of the original 47 underframe. I took several more mm of height out of the original underframe as I think it was too tall and was certainly taller than the new side pieces (as shown in my last post on the subject), I used the dremmel with a sanding bit in order to speed this up - mmmmm the smell of melting plastic!

For the cylinder that I had identified at one end I found I had a length of plastic tubing which I think I was going to make scenic pipe loads for my layout. By good fortune it is almost the exact diameter as the cylinder head on the underframe moulding so I cut a short length off, painted it and stuck in on to create a cylinder. The cylinder is still just attached to the rest of the underframe by a small remaining bit of the moulding to give it a bit of support as I wasn't 100% certain I would be able to stick it to the main chassis frame. With it all being dark, black and underneath the loco I am not sure it is that visible.

 

IMG_20200505_2039153.jpg.e4a3edf639a4c2b5b3efde3c7b10be0a.jpg

 

This will require a part on the outside end of the cylinder picking out in white and on the other side of the underframe gubbins there is a panel that will be picked out in orange, then remount it underneath the main chassis. The bogies also need a few details picking out in white too although I'm not convinced I have a steady enough hand or a small enough brush! However all is not lost, I have found a painting assistant.

 

On the main body I am still working on creating cabs, I bought a job lot of old Hornby/Lima cab mouldings of various shapes and incarnations but haven't found one that fits yet, I have been filing and cutting some up so may just end up sticking a desk and some seats in rather than a full moulding. Windows will be cut from a thin sheet of clear PVC I have as I have misplaced the bit that came with the kit. Buffers need painting and sticking in, yellow warning panels need painting, bufferbeams painting, handrails need fitting and whilst writing this I must not forget to install the lighting!!!

 

The final hurdle is the pantograph. Having scoured the internet and this forum (with little found other than the whole community wants a new Brecknell Willis pantograph made) I have come to two choices;

1) Acquire a Hornby Class 90/92 pantograph - the last one I saw on that auction site sold for £23 just for the pan!

2) Construct one out of brass.

 

A member of this parish wrote an article about 10 years ago about blinging up a Hornby 90 including manufacturing a new pantograph (that was sprung) and it does look fantastic. Only snag is I have never worked on anything like this at all ever. In fact the only time I have ever used brass was the pickups on the 73 I wrote at the start of this. The author described the process as 'fairly straightforward' (I may be paraphrasing) but it looked a little complicated to me!

 

Transfers are in the post and then that will complete 89001. The pantograph however is causing me all sorts of headaches - answers on a postcard please dear readers!

 

I will elaborate on my painting assistant (I hope she never reads that) and showcase some of their work on here soon.

 

Al

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As promised I thought I would share some of the work I have managed to get my girlfriend involved with. She has always been arts-y but I had kind of shielded her away from my modelling fearing how she would perceive it. However I have never been particularly good at brush painting and having unwittingly admitting she like to paint I had begun to try and sow the seeds that perhaps I could get her to paint some of my figures.

I persuaded her to go to a model show in Stevenage sometime around Christmas or just after and whilst there made a flippant comment about figures and painting again. Shortly afterwards I was paying for a number of Monty's Models figures! At said show there was also a demonstration by someone on painting and Nicola sat down with her and got some tips (I think I was too busy looking at another trade stand...)

 

Fast forward to lockdown and Nicola asked to finally have a go at the figures. I had been given a shopping list - CIF, an old toothbrush and some matt varnish - and the after providing some photos from the internet of what I was looking for the good lady set to work. I was worried I might not have the right shade of paint - 'Derrr, you just mix it up yourself!' - well that was me told.

 

Her first figure in 4mm, a BTP officer:

1695619617_IMG_6052crop.jpg.4d5c9e598724fcac95c5f320590e13cb.jpg115109697_IMG_6053crop.jpg.38bd5d3fa624ec0706ea2068a2384986.jpg

 

I have since added a transfer to this chap's back after a recent order from Steve at Railtec...

 

246709470_IMG_20200507_1552495crop.jpg.e4ee49b92cb9de483698eae21badbb0e.jpg

 

Now it doesn't look straight there but under a magnifying glass I thought it was straight when compared to his lapels!

 

Next up was a driver, the photo for this being an image from DRS' careers page on the website:

 

1643454871_IMG_20200419_1641189crop.jpg.9d225464db60a7f750b10f9c5e06eddd.jpg227148567_IMG_20200419_1641390crop.jpg.f0c34dd74f769e2e74e70d2df9f4c9c4.jpg

 

The figure for this was of a BR secondman, the moulded detail for that of a jacket and trousers. 'Fear not' I was told since I was worrying how a different attire might be painted on. The hat was painted up as a flat cap which I thought was a nice touch!

Nicola refused to paint his feet when I said most drivers had to be amputated at the waist to fit in loco cabs! 

 

A couple of days later and another driver, this working from an image from Google of a driver walking down his train in full orange gear - 'Do you want him to be dirty like the photo?' - well I wasn't going to refuse!

 

1818208783_IMG_20200422_1611394crop.jpg.3fab9126bd453ccdff80a43246f0a0b5.jpg

 

Again based on the BR secondman. The head was filed a little to try and create more of a hard hat (like the photo she was working from) and this guy was even given a beard! I have said that it feels an absolute crime to put this one in a cab and he may end up being a member of a track gang sat on the side of the line waiting for a train to pass.

 

Since then - and still a work in progress (I'm told) - we have another driver (from the ModelU stable):

 

883275785_IMG_20200505_1557164crop.jpg.55d4c00c60f43528b583b8843497264a.jpg

 

And finally, the model Nicola was most pleased (I nearly said excited...) to buy at the Stevenage show. That of a young lady dragging a suitcase which conjured happy/humorous memories of our first holiday last October where upon exiting Prague station Nic's suitcase lost a wheel. I can still vividly picture the scene as she remarked in a most peculiar voice 'Oh no, my wheel!' before running back across the cobbled paving to where the wheel was lying some way behind us.

We then had to drag the ailing suitcase around Amsterdam and back via Eurostar, by the time we got to Euston the scraping noise from the bag was less amusing...!

 

Anyway, here is Nic depicting herself in her sports team jersey which is how we met - it still needs a logo on the front and then the suitcase needs painting. She has said she might even file off a wheel:

 

146042083_IMG_20200505_2053148crop.jpg.ee9ada63b64048c1dc6d8d34f0f4d623.jpg544719837_IMG_20200505_2052547crop.jpg.8124ae819ff464ee5fbdc5eacd2523c0.jpg

 

Following these I have a couple more ModelU drivers and then I suppose I better get ordering some more things to paint! This was a most unexpected surprise and I have since been shuffling books about weathering closer to her arm of the settee... we'll see how that goes!

 

Since these last two posts the modelling mojo is back and I have been doing some of my favourite task - adding transfers - so hopefully some more on here soon.

 

Al

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Wow those figures are superb! Nice work by Nicola and yourself Al for finding her a new hobby! I particularly like that Police officer...I’ve used a few Monty's figures and they represent often under-modelled subjects...I had a Police officer too and also a youth which looked particularly effective.

 

Hope you’re both well.

Jack.

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Just a 'little' progress update. Some time ago I set to work on adding vinyls/renumbering my GWR green powercars - some of you may remember this was a bit of a disaster due to misty can of varnish and as a result both powercars have sat on the side for a while. The misty varnish was only on one powercar and the other one has sat in debranded green and whilst rifling through my transfers I decided to pick up where I had left off!

43187 looked like this:

IMG_20200506_2033404.jpg.b4950d60505f538bd4d18a4a83f7c573.jpg

 

The original GWR in silver/grey having been removed with a cotton bud and thinners. This had left a shiny sheen which would be covered by her new identity. However there was still remnants of the branding as on the 4 sides of powercars I had debranded this side appeared to have a groove of a mm or two where the logo was. I wasn't overly concerned as if I laid the new transfer carefully enough it shouldn't be obvious. I did however remove the original number from the cargo door like a cretin with a scalpel blade and have scratched the door slightly. On the other side (which looked considerably better by comparison!) the number was removed with a light dab of T-Cut on a cotton bud, a technique that took the printing off fairly easily and with little residual marking. I will be using this technique again!

 

Now for my favourite bit - transfers. The new identity was to be 43093 Old Oak Common HSTD 1976-2018 as unveiled at the Old Oak Common open day back in 2017. The transfers were from Railtec and include everything I needed to replicate the condition of the loco between the open day (02/09/2017) and sometime in 2018. Since then she has gained an additional logo behind the cargo door to mark the last train off depot, unfortunately this isn't available as a transfer... yet...

The pack includes '3D transfers' for the nameplate which look fairly convincing to me. Additionally there is the sticker representing the open day and the 'Legends of the Western', new numbers which are located beneath the cab window, fuel gauges to replace the black moulding on the Hornby model, white markings (technical description) just above the solebar that are not present on the Hornby original and cantrail stripes which I didn't need to use and an absolutely tiny number which goes on the crew door at the rear of the powercar.

 

The bad side:

IMG_20200506_2128056.jpg.4b214a5e7ac435a7c7cd10c3bb3492a8.jpg

 

The good side:

IMG_20200506_2249107.jpg.e50fab41302a4f6abeb329a0ab630377.jpg

 

I must say I was really pleased with how this went, the large transfer caused me a few panics but I managed to get it straightened up on both sides with no wrinkles or bubbles - phew.

 

The number of the gangway door:

IMG_20200507_1314101.jpg.637d36b1f80a53175d96a1d6ea7a8f76.jpg

 

Finally as the sun was out and I was required to be outside taking photos of a teddy bear's picnic (as you do) then I snapped a photo of 43093 in the sun:

1543863623_IMG_6347Editlower.jpg.4e1ac0bcf07287ccd445869a6562b4f7.jpg

 

You can see here that after my earlier success I decided to bite off more than I can chew and cut out one of the engine grilles. I believe this was a sign that the loco had had a particular modification done and is present on a number of HST powercars in the Western fleet on both sides. Mine is on one side as I scraped the above and below slats a little too much for my liking whilst trying to gentle cut it out with a scalpel. If I can get Nicola to mix a similar shade of green then I might just touch in the whitened bits of plastic!

 

Here's my photo taken at the open day in 2017 for comparison:

537393752_43093OOCOpenDay.jpg.a104082b26abe22fb5f964798d835d89.jpg

 

Other than that I have now received the custom transfers for 89001 so need to crack on with the cab interiors, the lighting and that pantograph. In my order of transfers I also had some for renumbering nuclear flasks. My sister was devastated when she bought me a #21 flask only to learn that that was the one she had previously purchased for me. I told it would be no bother...

 

Originally:

IMG_20200507_1403529.jpg.0fb72b9acd214f55011bb5dbfc47b783.jpg

 

An hour later:

IMG_20200507_1519064.jpg.4ec225cf61d733c3fac09ec09c3fe5c1.jpg

 

I also updated the electric warning flashes which on the model were the old style and changed the data panel on the side to match the correct number. I now need to take a pipe cleaner to the model to remove all of the dust which the photography has cruelly showed up!

 

More soon I hope.
Al

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  • 8 months later...

A very long overdue update. Where on earth the last 8 months have gone I will never know. 

After doing a load of modelling during the spring last year it all suddenly ground to a halt towards the end of May, a couple of setbacks, a fear that I had annoyed a trader and getting brought back in to work all sapped my enthusiasm and energy for modelling. However it is the bug that never goes away completely and I have pottered away in the background on and off since September and now have a few things to report.

 

Having always said that I would never go DCC as I don't understand the electrics enough, don't like the perception of the extra cost (and cannot see a benefit to it) and have always been really turned off by what I felt was obnoxiously loud and tinny sound at shows  I must admit there has been a bit of a changing in the tides!

Swindon's Hornby outlet store succumbed to the financial pressures of covid and closed towards the end of last year. Generally speaking I rarely bought thing from there as they were sold at RRP, however during the closing down sale prices got lower and lower and I found myself in there quite a lot! One of the more needless purchases I made was the Western Master DCC starter set with Hornby eLink and Railmaster. The set was £80 and  I felt that at this price I couldn't go far wrong, it appeared to offer me a taster of DCC and computer control... perhaps there was something in this DCC malarkey after all?

 

I cannot say I am a master of it yet and I am still making very tentative steps but I am enjoying my explorations so far. In November for the 5th anniversary since my Mum's passing I sent off the 37 I have named after her to Roads & Rails for a Legomanbiffo sound chip and an EM2 speaker. Having watched a lot of videos demonstrating different sound projects and speaker combos on 37s I felt like this might just have the rumble of the real thing! (Earlier in this thread you may have seen I have a Hornby TTS 97 and I reinserted the sound chip into this and was instantly reminded of what I didn't like - loud and tinny sounds!)

I must say, I was blown away by the sound of the EM2 and I suspect it will not be the last I have sent away for this treatment. Having said that I have some things to learn about inertia, more than once I have been scrambling for the big red button as the 37 just keeps trundling towards the edge of the board!

 

The first DCC project I tackled was inspired by a birthday present. Nicola also nipped into the Hornby outlet and picked up 'a blue one' (her words) - 66109 'Teesport Express' in striking blue PD Ports colours. A basic model, perhaps, but rife for tinkering and modifying. A 66 TTS chip and speaker were acquired and simply plugged in. Inevitably I didn't like the sound at all and ordered an 8 ohm Megabass speaker (after learning that speakers have ohms and that I couldn't just plug in any speaker). With the addition of a new and much smaller soldering iron bit for delicate and fiddly soldering work I snipped out the old speaker and in with the new.

 

(Old speaker simply dropped into the spacious chassis)

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The new speaker sounded much better and overall the sounds, I felt, were pretty good for the very affordable TTS price. However, the sound sounded trapped, it clearly sounded like a 66 trapped in a plastic shell. After a little research it seemed a popular place to locate speakers was either underneath a roof grille/fan or in the fuel tank with a hole cut to allow the sound to escape. As the model's grilles and fans are all part of the body molding I opted for the fuel tank option. It was a little daunting drilling a hole in the bottom of the tank and it went with an awful crack when the bit finally went through!

What I was very impressed by for a 'basic' model was the weight, underneath the blanking plate/chip interface there was a lot of metal weights.

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Clearly to utilise the tanks for the speaker I had to remove these weights. Keen to get some weight back in there I set about cutting the weights so that they sat next to the speaker. Learning point: don't use an ordinary multi purpose dremel bit on metal. After two thin weights had been cut I had worn through a whole disk! I resorted to being less lazy and cutting the rest using a junior hacksaw.

 

Test fitting the speaker, the glue marks were where the weights had been held in place in the belly of the beast:

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After cutting all of the weight strips I re-wrapped a number in tape and moved the speaker to one end of the fuel tank (typically I found I could get more weight in if the speaker was at the opposite end of the fuel tank to where the hole I had drilled was... measure twice, cut once and all that).

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With the plastic ledge refitted above the speaker and weights I retested the model and the sound is greatly improved! I'm really delighted with how well it turned out and it has made a real difference to the model.

On revisiting it last night I can't help but feel that the loco was still rather light and that with a train of any decent length it would begin to struggle. The original model almost certainly wouldn't have struggled but the speaker is just that bit lighter than the weight it replaced. So, in my finest bodging fashion I set to trying to add more weight!

Some time ago I bought a pick 'n' mix type bag of washers and bolts from B&Q with the intention of using them as ballast in future modelling projects. So the 66 was stripped down again and areas investigated for adding ballast.

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The result is a slightly untidy hodge podge, but it is all well secured down! Another couple of half weights were taped and black tacked to the top of the speaker and checked to make sure that the bare metal wouldn't contact anything electrical - thanks to the plastic ledge the chip and wires are on this shouldn't be a problem.

On the right hand side as we look at it some bolts were glued to the base of the chassis where there was half a space. These have had a little bit of black tack stuck between them so they can't rattle against each other but with the glue I think they'll set solid.

On the left hand side is a series of washers glued to the chassis and a large bolt on top of them. The bolt has been filled with liquid lead and a blob of glue on the top and bottom and then capped with tape to prevent any stray balls from escaping. There is still space to the left of this unsightly blob should I need it but the weight feels like it has come back on nicely.

 

In due course I will add a driver but based on the location of the headlights (they are on the main bodyshell but tuck over the front of the chassis) I suspect I won't be adding lighting to this one. It could do with a good weather but I'm not confident at that yet!

 

I shall probably leave it there for this update, lest I write two long essays a year and then go quiet! I have a couple of other things that I have completed which I can write about over the next week or so and plenty more loitering on the bench - a lot waiting for some kind of painting or stripping of bad paint jobs! Nicola has said she approves (or maybe that's insists) on the purchase of an airbrush but I will wait until the weather gets warmer.

 

Oh, one last thing that happened that exacerbated my hiatus from the forum; after years of thinking I could never be a pilot because of diabetes I learned during Lockdown 1 that the law was changed back in 2012 and diabetics can get a pilots licence (with a fair few hoops to jump through). It was my dream growing up to be a pilot and whilst I don't have any plans to change my career path right now I am going like a bull in a china shop at my private licence. The downside is this is incredibly time and financially consuming - just what you want when you're trying to upgrade your large fleet to DCC!

 

34 hours in the log book since July and 6 of the 9 theory exams completed. I will leave you with a photo taken from a scenic pre Christmas flight I completed with my instructor from Kemble to Lee-on-Solent complete with a 700ft flyover of Bournemouth beach and Needles lighthouse...

 

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Edited by Afroal05
Removed additional picture that wasn't meant to be there!
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A little DCC upgrade project on a model that has graced these pages before.

 

When I previously purchased the Network Rail TTS Class 37 I simply unplugged the chip, putting a blanking plug in and left the speaker and wiring in place. When I was tinkering with the new DCC software with a bit of straight track on the dining room table the model seemed like an obvious one to return to DCC and start playing.

 

Re-DCC-ing 97302 was very easy and pretty quickly I had deafening and slightly tinny sound! Previously I had drilled out the light holes and ordered LEDs and fibre optic but had never got any further with it. Since then I came across some handy pre-made kits on eBay that were all fitted up with resistors etc and just needed wiring in to place. I thought, since I am pretty inexperienced electrically, that this might provide a simpler solution to trying to wire my own in. The kits come as a pair of black plastic type material with light holes cut in one side and tape across the back with the three wires taped together. There is also a little fibre optic and heat shrink and instructions were sent through by email.

 

Whilst I had the top off the model I also decided to upgrade the speaker with the addition of an 8 ohm megabass speaker (the same as the one in the 66 in my previous post).

The speaker in the TTS 37 is a round speaker screwed into the metal weight that makes up part of the chassis. I think the seal with the metal chassis forms a sound tight casing behind the speaker and the sound escapes via the exhaust holes in the roof. I chose to keep the speaker mounted on top of the chassis and pointing upwards for simplicity, it might have fitted in the fuel tank but this would have required more bodging. Snip two wires, solder two wires and heat shrink, job done. The speaker was fixed to the chassis with black tack (a new favourite medium for me I think!)

 

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The image above also shows the wires attached to the metal tags around the DCC chip, I used an 8 pin wiring diagram to make sure I got the right ones for the colour coded wire (I actually got the yellow and white the opposite way round but I am not sure if this was misreading the diagram or a wiring issue between me and the kit).

 

Short lengths of fibre optic were cut for the taillights and passed over a flame to round the ends off a little. The instructions say that this requires some practice... they were not wrong. I can laugh now but I was not so amused when the first bit I tried to round out caught fire and melted away! As I did not have a lighter I had to use a tea light and quickly moved the optic over the flame and away again. 

The inside of the noses were painted black (about 3 coats) to prevent light bleed. Blobs of UHU were placed on the inside of the taillight holes and the optics fed in. These were then left to dry.

Interestingly the kit provided a lighthouse LED to fit into the headlight hole, these were a tight fit and I filed the stubs of the metal legs off the LED before pushing it in, they had already been cut but there were still small stubs.

 

Once the paint and glue had dried I wired one lighting board up to a 9V battery to check they worked and then loosely held them in place in the nose to check the optics were okay and that the LED actually worked like a fibre optic (as I was cynical!)

Following this the excess fibre optic sticking out inside the model was cut back to the same length that the base of the LED protruded and a strip of black tack was stuck to each side of the lighting board so that it would stick to the bodyside of the 37. I then placed the lighting board back into the nose using tweezers to help align any stray fibre optic with the holes on the lighting board and move the board as close to the nose as possible. Once this was done the 9V battery was plugged in again to check everything looked alright:

 

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I must apologise, I don't know why but I cannot get portrait images to display properly, they are all turned. If anyone knows please comment!

 

The only complaints I had about the lighting was that the drilled holes for the taillights were appalling. However this is down to my ham fisted drilling when I originally did it, I have upped my game in this respect as I hope you will see when I next post about putting lights in a Bachmann 20.

 

Happy that the lighting looked okay and that the fibre optic was in a good place I repeated this work on the other end of the model. I used a hacksaw to take a little bit off the ends of the chassis where the lighting board would foul the side, this can be seen on the picture below and was maybe 1cm at either end.

With both ends wired up and tested the wires were fixed to the bodyside just below the window line so that they were not visible from the outside but did not foul the chassis. After the buffoonery with the varnish when I originally (badly) weathered the model you cannot really see through the windscreen anyway so the wires are not visible.

 

It was at this point in the instructions that there was a disclaimer to say that it had recently been discovered that there have been problems with these DCC kits not working with Hornby TTS decoders. I proceeded regardless!

A pretty simple job of matching up the coloured wires and soldering them together - not forgetting the heat shrink! (Which I did, of course). During this wiring up I actually moved the speaker to where the original one had sat as I had placed the new one just off to one side. Finally, the top was put back on and the model was taken to the railway for a test...

 

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I am delighted to report that it was a roaring success, the lights worked, the sound is improved and there wasn't a puff of blue smoke due to calamitous wiring! As eluded to earlier I did initially find that the lights worked the wrong way round and have since swapped the yellow and white wires over and now have the correct directional lighting. A nice 'simple' bit of modelling that taught me a few new skills and upgraded a model nicely.

I imagine 97302 might reappear here at some point in the future. I am not satisfied with the weathering and being a cheaper model I think it will be one to have a go on again in the future. In a perfect world the headlight is bright white and the real thing has a much subtler warm yellow hue to it. If I can think of a way of tinting it or toning it down them I might do so, I think I have seen a suggestion for a splash of yellow watercolour paint.

'302 has been renamed in real life since I renumbered this model, I suppose I might get some plates ordered one day.

 

Since then I have been using the same auction sellers kits to add lighting to a Bachmann Class 20 which has been an incredibly challenging mod but enormously rewarding. I will post about that sometime next week I hope as I am working towards a modern day pair of 20s (one with sound) for stock hauling on my layout.

 

Edited by Afroal05
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Very nice work Al...lighting is a slippery slope, next you’ll be wanting cab lights, engine room lights, driver's mobile phone light.......... :D

 

It adds so much to a model and as you’ve seen, despite appearing a 'dark art' it’s really rewarding.

 

As for photos...I find if I crop them ever so slightly in your phone/tablet/laptop photo editor, it 'remembers' the orientation you’ve saved after cropping and keeps it straight. Works for me every time!

 

Keep up the great work!

Jack.

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Very much so Jack, I look at models without lighting now and I am itching to 'fix' them. I have a DC kit for 59003 in the drawer but it doesn't include a toplight (neither does the Hornby model) so some thought is going to have to go into making one of those. I could try and fabricate something out of plasticard but the toplight on '003 is round which is slightly more challenging! Plus the kit is currently all wired up for DC... one for another day perhaps.

 

Thanks for the tip on the photos, I'll have a go.

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My 100th post on RMweb so let's try and make it my best one yet!

 

Following on from the sound mod in 66109 and the sound and light upgrade in 97302 I decided to try and tackle a more fiddly loco. After purchasing a Bachmann 20 in a pre-Christmas sale in Railfreight grey with red solebar and DCC sound I realised that I could finally run 20s in a pair on a train. As it happens I already owned a 20 - 20901 - bought years ago at a model show because of the price rather than because it fitted with my layout! Neither 20 had lighting and with my new found confidence (and easy to use kits) I set about adding lighting to '901.

 

The body of the Bachmann 20 is probably the easiest of any Bachmann models to remove, there is a screw beneath the cab and one at the nose end, no faffing around between the bogies! The body neatly slides off and reveals not a lot of space underneath, this was going to be a tight upgrade. I was again using the very simple, pre wired lighting boards purchased from eBay.

Whilst removing the body provides access to the bonnet end it does not provide access to the cab! Some studying of the model didn't reveal a clear answer as to how it comes apart but the internet delivered and a video was found. Now the video said it was easy but I can assure you it was not! To release the cab there are two tabs at the base of the front of the cab and two recessed into the side of the body where the little window on the nose end of the cab meets the body. You can see here where I had prodded at one with a scalpel.

 

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Much levering and prodding was made at these but they wouldn't budge, in fact one of the cab ones snapped off. There was a suggestion to gently lever the cab sides away from the body. Even with a lot of levering the body seemed to bend and not budge. I wedged cotton bud sticks (with the buds cut off)  into the side to keep the leverage whilst I worked at the other side. Eventually the base of the cab came free at the front and with some more leverage applied to the sides they came loose with a concerning crack. 

 

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As you can see here in an effort to apply more brute force I inadvertently pressed on the windscreens and they detached very easily! You can also see where the scalpel blade has scratched at the step beneath the cab door as I was initially trying to get some leverage on the cab.

One the sides of the cab have made their initial crack they can be eased outwards and the can moved upwards, one side at a time, bit by bit until it comes off. I then repeated the process on the other 20 I had purchased - 20156 (to be renumbered as 20132). Unfortunately this went slightly worse that with '901 as I have bent the plastic by one of the cab doors and the cab may bow slightly when it is refitted. :mad:

 

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Following this drama attention turned to the nose end of the body and fitting the lights. First step was to drill through the light mouldings and paint the inside black to prevent any light bleed. The recommendation was to use a .5mm drill bit drilling with the utmost precision as mistakes would mean the lighting board wouldn't line up. It was recommended to use an awl to help the drill bit stay centred. Well, I don't own (and had never heard of) an awl so attempts were made with a steady hand. I can't say this was particularly successful and resulted in a very messy finish. The finish was tidied up with a bit of Railmatch warning yellow brush painted on but it didn't cover the rough drilled holes!

(Pre painting photo)

 

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There is a lens in the headlight position on the model and the end of it is painted silver, running over this with a scalpel blade skimmed off the paint. Once the black paint on the inside of the model had dried (or was at least tacky) I cut short lengths of fibre optic and fed them through the light holes securing them on the inside of the noise with a blob of UHU.

I think one of the coats of yellow I put on the nose might have been a bit wet when I fed the fibre optic through:

 

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Once the glue had dried the fibre optic was clipped back to about the same depth as the lens for the headlight. The lighting board was attached to my trusty 9V battery and with the sides covered in a strip of black tack the board was gently nudged and shuffled in to place with a pair of tweezers on hand in case a fibre wasn't quite lined up. The results were really pleasing even if all of the holes aren't perfectly centred.

The light can be seen shining through the holes that exist for the headcode discs that came with the model. As far as I can tell from a perusal of the internet 20901 hasn't worn headcode discs in service with GBRf although I'll happily be proven wrong. I suppose I could/should have filled the holes in but I like the idea that I could put the discs on if I wanted - the light bleed didn't appear so bad on the layout in the dark.

 

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I must say, the photography is cruel as just seeing some of this stuff with the naked eye is eye popping-ly hard!

Having said that I was very keen not to have a repeat of the wonky scabby holes on the cab end. If the 20s were going to run around prototypically in a pair the nose ends were going to be less important anyway but I wanted the cab ends to look the business.

Whilst racking my brains for a way to get a better drilled hole a friend suggested filing off the plastic light to leave a flat surface that would be replaced by the end of the fibre optic. THIS improved the situation massively, having a flat surface to drill in to made things a lot easier and as a result almost all of the lights look considerably better.

 

As you can see from the work in progress shot I just filed enough off the 'light' to remove the original paint finish and leave it flat like the one you can see bottom left.

 

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Unfortunately there was a slight slip with the centre light at the bottom of the cab front as can be seen from the drilled holes pre-optic.

 

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Much like the nose end the inside of the cab was painted black and fibre optic was glued into the holes. The instructions said that the driving desk needed to be removed but I didn't want to lose the cab detail so I instead filed it with a dremmel to remove most of its depth and moved it closer to the driving seat. The seat itself looked far too high and too big for a driving figure so was cut from the floor and had the pole shortened and a little bit of the seat was filed away. One of Nicola's driver figures was stuck to the seat and attempts made to reattach the seat to the floor. Unfortunately neither UHU or black tack seemed to work and after the model was put back together the driver and chair have fallen over. After the hassle I had getting the cab back on I am not looking forward taking it apart again!

 

The front lights were fitted much he same as the rear ones and tested with the battery:

 

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This photo shows how far the lighting board sits from the front wall of the cab based on how far the lens for the headlight protrudes into the cab. Only after completing all of the lighting work did I see in the instructions the recommendation is to cut off the lens to reduce the impact into the cab, doh! I don't have any plans to fix this at the moment.

 

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Next step was tackling the electrics. The amendments to an 8 pin model were dead easy, just solder the wires onto the tags next to the corresponding pin. My first glances had cofirmed my fears, this was not the same process with a 21 pin decoder! After consultation with my DCC savvy friend he confirmed I needed to solder to the base of the decoder adaptor... yikes.

 

I found a wiring diagram for the ESU621 decoder that I was using and could then assign different F keys for headlights and independently controlled taillights, something I was keen for if this was to run in a pair! With an enormous amount of trepidation I tried to solder the smallest amounts of wire to the board with the smallest amounts of solder. With the naked eye I couldn't 100% confirm that there weren't any stray strands of wire touching, I tried using my modelling assistant with magnifying glass and whilst it was pretty good I found zooming in the camera on my phone to be the best. At this point if I could pick a GIF to describe how it felt it would be one of Ted Stryker in Airplane, you know the one, with him sweating!

 

End result after several re-solders after knocking the model and the wires pulling loose:

IMG_20210130_1749094.jpg.19104ae1a5f4aed80b64b8dd5adf10da.jpg

 

This end result was quite a bit neater than the previous attempts so perhaps me accidentally (and repeatedly) breaking the connections was for the best.

All that was left to do was connect up the wires to those coming from the lights - forgetting heatshrink again and inadvertently pulling the wires off the chip again.

 

IMG_20210130_1824062.jpg.097cceef194f4a18a009ab32e9f1fea7.jpg

 

All that was left to do was try an tidy up the wires, refit the body and test. I was somewhat nervous putting the 20 on the track expecting a puff of blue smoke, much frustration and plenty of head scratching. Well... IT WORKS! Probably the single biggest boost I've had from my modelling so far in that drilling those holes was a nightmare and wiring up the chip was a huge challenge. Pleasingly it all came together and ran backwards and forwards on my test plank in the dark and looked pretty darn good (if I do say so myself).

 

I have since messaged the maker of the kits and asked if they can make a version for a domino headcode box with a high intensity headlight, they have said they can and turned it around almost immediately, all being well I will be able to complete the lighting on the other 20 this weekend. The other 20 is Bachmann's 20156 with DCC sound. My plans is to modernise her and transform her into 20132 as seen today. This will require a cantrail stripe, new OLE flashes, nameplates and transfers. These can then be a GBRf pairing and do stock moves, railtours etc on my layout. I have upgraded the sound on the Railfreight example with Legomanbiffo sound as I found the Bachmann standard one sounded like a really short loop of sound when the loco was under power.

 

That's me all caught up for now so it might be a little while until the next update, not too long I hope!

 

Al

Edited by Afroal05
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20132, Part 1 - Similar but different could be the title of this one. After the lighting addition to 20901 I moved on to the second 20 in the pair, '132. The body and cab was removed in the same way as described with '901 and the taillights at both the cab and nose end were drilled out with a steady hand having filed away the painted red lens to give a flat surface to drill through. The instructions say to drill a .5mm hole through but I've done them with a .6mm bit as it makes it slight easier to fit the fibre optic and you really can't tell the difference. Any scraping around the holes was touched in with some warning panel yellow but pleasingly these 4 holes were much smarter than on 20901.

 

Next came the domino box headlights at the nose end. The domino box cover was removed by pressing black tack down over the domino and pulling away, the domino came out very easily and is one plastic moulding with the black and white detail printed(?) onto it. I used a little bit of black tack to hold the domino in position against the body just beneath the domino box and marked where the centre of the white dots would be with a pencil. I drilled through these starting with a 1mm bit and then a 1.6mm bit before wiring up the 9V battery to the lighting kit and test fitting. There was a little fettling to do so I filed the holes as required but they weren't far off. I pushed the domino back into place and retested with the lights.

 

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Next was the high intensity headlight which is present on '132 but not on the donor model - '156 as modelled in '80s condition. I wasn't sure how I was going to model this, I wasn't convinced I'd be able to scratch build something good enough but I did find that Hornby produce a spare part (X6865) which says it is a Class 31 headlight surround. This looks the part so a pack was ordered. Again I lined up the lighting kit with the nose and eye balled where the light hole needed to be, marked it and drilled it with a 1mm bit. This was spot on so I opened it out to 1.6mm. 

 

Attention then moved to the cab end, the black tack technique didn't appear to be moving the headcode box at all and I was reluctant to stick a scalpel blade at the edge of it for fear of scratching the paint. After a lot of battling I resorted to drilling it from the inside as it just wouldn't budge. With two holes drilled approximately where the lights needed to be I then tentatively put pressure on the back of the headcode box. It eventually pinged off and revealed that it is a solid unit that was very unlikely to every come apart like the nose end did! The holes I had drilled were then tested with the light kit and a little bit of opening them out required.

 

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I decided to place the headcode box over the top of the light holes to see what it looked like, this was arguably a mistake as I didn't like it! The lights in the kit are bright white which doesn't look like '132 at all which has a much softer 'warm white' completion. I re-tested the nose end lights and (unsurprisingly) they were as bad; bright, bright white.

So in many respects here is where I've stalled a bit. I'm ready to fix the lights in place, the new transfers have arrived and nameplates are in the post but I cannot put it back together with lights that I know aren't right! I've tried a little warning yellow on a clear piece of plastic and it just looks like a white light shining through yellow and the closest I've found to the colour was a pink and orange quality street film on top of each other but that isn't right either. So until I can work out how to tone down the lights I'm not sure what I can do.

 

Nicola swooped in briefly to do a small bit of painting after I found the front handrails and the steps at either end of the chassis on '132 are white. The recess for the foothole has been painted with a thin wash of Black Metal Cote.

 

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Next time Nic has the paint brush out I will get her to paint the buffer arms silver and I will need to decide on a set photo to model '132 from as some have silver buffers with a splodge of grease and others have the whole buffer head covered in black mess.

 

Frustrated at my modelling mojo not achieving anything I dug out a project that has sat at the back of the workbench for some time waiting to get started. A mad idea, I know, and all inspired by a day out on the trains in January last year. After finding a kit of parts on eBay and buying some Hornby mk3s last March little else happened. I had stared at the parts and wondered how I was going to make it all up and I filed some of the flash from the parts. I tried to take the windows out of a Virgin mk3 only to find that the glue that was holding them in was the toughest I have ever come across! I have since managed to break out the rest of the windows but I have split and damaged one of the window frames and snapped a scalpel blade. Interestingly I bought 2x Virgin mk3s and 2x Intercity Blue/Grey mk3s and the windows on the blue/grey popped out dead easily. I need one more coach - although I might get two so that I can use one for spare window cut outs or other bits.

 

So what requires 5 coaches, a kit and typically isn't appropriate to any area I model?

It's a 442! (Or 5-WES as those of a Southern persuasion know them). A big task and probably biting off more than I can chew but a very interesting one. My research hasn't uncovered a huge number of them modelled and even fewer on RMweb when I was looking for tips and tricks. After some enquiries I have found that pdanny of this forum has made one - originally with Hurst parts - and has recently upgraded it and they have been incredibly supportive.

I can't promise I will progress very quickly and there will be plenty of mistakes but hopefully something very interesting will come of it. I haven't decided on a livery yet but as I am not really a fan of NSE (plus my modelling is sort of post 2010) it looks like I will be doing it in present day SWR white and blue.

 

Progress so far... 3 coaches have had several soak and scrubs in IPA.

 

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More soon, maybe, hopefully...

 

Al

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3 minutes ago, Steadfast said:

In your quest to tone down the class 20 LEDs, might be worth a try of some dark browns and oranges too, I accidentally got a nice colour once by the weathering mix misted over the light.

 

Jo

 

Thanks Jo, I'll give it a go!

 

Al

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'And now for something completely different!'

Whilst perusing YouTube one of the recommended videos to watch was Humbrol's own video on how to use their weathering powders. If you have read this thread from the start you may remember early on that I attacked 97302 with some weathering powders with some... dubious results. I hadn't touched the powders since and had resigned myself to the belief that I was crap at weathering too and would have to have another go some other time. Well, after watching the basic tutorials which made it look really very easy I thought I would have another go.

 

Instead of risking a more expensive loco I decided that this experiment would be conducted on my fleet of ballast/spoil wagons comprising of B'man and Hornby examples of PNA, MTA and ZBA 'Rudd's. I chose a green Railtrack PNA, EWS MTA and a factory weathered Dutch liveried Rudd to start with. 

Initially the wagons are sprayed with a quick blast of matt acrylic varnish from a rattle can. This dries very quickly so by the time I had set up my workstation for dirty powders etc then it was all good to work on. A mix of 50/50 enamel thinners and Matt Cote were swilled together on an appropriate pallet (I used a strip of clear plastic packing that was about to be thrown out). I then liberally wiped this all down one side of the model. According to the video this forms an excellent base to allow rust colours to form and spread on the model. Having accidentally painted on to one side without this transparent coating I found that it painted on okay but if I wanted things to flow into the cracks the base coating made it easier. Additionally the video talks about adding streaking later on and this base layer I think helps with that. Using Flickr to identify specific wagons I wanted to model (or take inspiration from) I knew I wasn't going to worry too much about streaking as these particular wagons lead unglamorous and battered lifestyles!

Next some powders were taken on a brush and mixed into a small pool of thinners and matt cote and swirled around, this created a paste. I used iron oxide, rust and dark earth colours varying the shades a bit and adding little amounts each time to change the colour as even a small amount changed the colour quite quickly!

 

IMG_20210214_1426107.jpg.d72d5a1389fcc50b969b2e54cee986f1.jpg

 

I tried to work one colour at a time down one side of the wagon focusing on just the body at first, I'd tackle the underframe later. I found that by the time I had worked my way to one end of the wagon the paste was already touch dry at the other end. I could then try adding different colours in and replicating the effects I could see in the pictures. As per advice from James Makin's excellent thread I worked from light to dark. I sometimes found the paste I was mixing would start to dry out, this would soon come back to life with a small drop of thinners or matt cote and could be mixed up again. I used a combination of a large brush and a small brush. (4 and 000). I painted over things like data panels and OLE warning flashes before cleaning them up with a cotton bud dipped in thinners.

 

After working on the body I left it to dry overnight and returned the following day to tackle the underframe. After a bit of mixing and experimenting I felt I found an acceptable shade and started painting it on. I subsequently did the wheels and it was a different shade... you be the judge on that!

As this was drying I then had a go using the powders dry. Again, this is covered in several videos on Humbrol's YouTube, I watched an interesting series of videos with a chap weathering an Airfix kit which gave me some ideas too.

Dark earth was brushed on the outside panels of the body and the inside was given a brush with a mix of white and smoke powders (heavier on the white). There was an interesting example on Flickr with a whole panel in a very washed out and white looking panel over the original livery, I have tried to re-create this.

Finally on the underframe I brushed a very light amount of smoke powder in a couple of places just to give it a little shadowing. I mixed a little smoke with thinners/matt cote and touched in a couple of parts of the underframe around the brake gear that looked like there is grease there to lubricate moving parts. All I need now is Nic to paint the buffer arms (they have a name, I'm certain of it but I can't remember) silver as these always appear clean and then this PNA is done!

 

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I really like that as I've blobbed several layers of paste on the side panels it has given it a slight texture and looks (to me) like bubbling rust.

 

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Feeling pretty positive after what I thought looked a reasonable effort I moved on to the EWS MTA. Again working from Flickr to find interesting examples and how they've weathered and what patches and scars they gain:

 

IMG_20210218_2343343.jpg.d18bf235d0a86e4730a6e392c5a648e5.jpg

 

The inside of the MTA was given a light brush with iron oxide powder as well as dark earth.

 

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The only work required to finish this is silver on the buffers and the grab rails above the ladders at either end will be painted into white rather than the silver they are at the moment. I liked that the yellow band was still visible in the photos I was working from beneath a layer of thick grime.

 

Finally the first Rudd. This was a little more challenging as the Rudds seem to have mostly been retired with quite a few photos of them on heritage raiways. There are some interesting examples taken from a rake at Eastleigh in the mid 2000s (I think) which have different levels of patch painting, rust and scratches. With so many ribs and hinged parts these look quite interesting and fun wagons to do - just as well as I have 4 in total!

 

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The Rudds were covered with factory weathering which was a wash of orange-y/browny stuff that was all over everything. I didn't make any efforts to remove this from most of the wagon and used it as a base layer to add shades of brown and rust to. I did use a cotton bud in thinners to clean up the white steps at either corner, the moulded handrails on the ends, the lamp irons and the white of the handbrake handle. I did snap off one of the steps and Nic has said that she would be able to just paint fresh over the steps on the remaining wagons.

 

IMG_20210219_1304497.jpg.4d04799e41521cf75b3002f6ef2b2e4a.jpg

 

The OLE warning flashes need replacing with modern variants, unfortunately on the wagon ends these won't be in the correct place. The flashes are underneath the handrails on the real thing however due to the fact these aren't wire handrails my options are to either put them where Hornby have originally put them - underneath and lower down the bodyside - or file the handrail off and replace with wire. I will stick them lower down on this occasion!

 

IMG_20210219_1305048.jpg.9c3be153ba8d7af32d22d040eb6c682e.jpg

 

Finally the underframe was given a dry brushing with smoke powder and a small wet mix of smoke touched onto the hinged parts of the brake gear and the hinges for the side panels of the body.

 

A lineup of the first three weathered wagons:

 

IMG_20210219_1305577.jpg.57b2e8f03d427b94dc18662179993dc3.jpg

 

After my previous struggles with the powders I couldn't feel any more different. I'm really pleased with how this has turned out, I'm no James Makin but I've had a huge amount of fun dirtying these up and studying Flickr for different examples. 3 down and 6 to go. I have one more green PNA, two factory weathered PNAs that look like they've been given a coat of black, two more weathered dutch Rudds and a Loadhaul Rudd that I haven't yet managed to find a real photo of!

So far I've sprayed the remaining wagons with varnish and put in some patch painted panels:

 

IMG_20210219_2254227.jpg.448fae2478242989b3985f1e273a624c.jpg

IMG_20210219_2254385.jpg.82e14ce9ddf80c4384a39ee056ce4170.jpg

 

Who knows what my next update will contain, perhaps more weathering? Or the spontaneous Class 73/1 project I've started? Or maybe some fettling on the mk3s for the 442 project?

 

It shouldn't be long before my next update, I am full throttle in modelling mojo at the moment and after receiving a letter telling me that I now need to shield it appears I have a bit more time on my hands...

 

Al

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