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Reproducing Varnished Teak - Improving Latest Hornby Thompsons


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Lovely job , further to JW's comments the LNER and numbers ( cant see where the numbers are located in photos)  should be in the centre of the panels not tight on the ends, as on my Thompson build photos .

Edited by micklner
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10549276_10204855595524318_2507820864904

 

Atm I'm limited to a spray can and simply use Tamiya's red oxide primer!  If I can find a color available in Canada that works with that or hand brushing then all the better, specific colors are impossible to get with the shipping ban on flamables.  This was abit of a test bed to see whether or not I could go about a Gresley conversion as I wanted more then Hornby offer.  An early example I painted is this Chivers Pigeon van.

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Off topic I know, but Canada is a big place, where are you both?

 

On topic, I've so far found the Vallejo colours Mike used in stores in Lethbridge, Victoria and Duncan, BC.

 

Cheers

 

Jason

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Teronna as the locals say, the second T gets dropped.

 

On teak finish I followed an old Steve Banks article, suggesting a beige base, and then strokes of brown oil paint thinned with Winsor and Newton Liquin. This makes the oil paint easy to apply in streaks like grain. Then work it in to each panel. Remove if too much, by just dragging it to the next panel. It gives plenty of working time.

I then brushed over with quite thinned Tamiya orange clear (For turn indicators and orange lights on vehicle kits)

All available here here in Canada.

I am pleased with the results, though not as good as the many examples in this thread. But I think that would be practice.

The technique worked well.

 

Tom

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  • 1 year later...
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Mike,

 

I found this thread recently when researching LNER teak for some pigeon vans; I am a Southern modeller so this is a bit alien to me!

 

I followed exactly the method that you laid out right at the outset - white undercoat, Vallejo orange, W&N burnt umber oil paint + liquin, and then Modelmates Soot Black to weather.

 

post-14629-0-68180000-1498237671_thumb.jpg

 

I am really pleased with the results, so thank you for sharing your approach!

 

Tony

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  • 5 months later...

I said yesterday that I would go on to illustrate a weathered teak finish.

 

No great secret, I simpy use Model Mates dyes:

attachicon.gifIMG_3413.JPG

 

The dye is watered down and applied over the side and allowed to dry:

attachicon.gifIMG_3394.JPG

 

Once dry a wetted cotton wool bud is used to remove the stain from the panels:

attachicon.gifIMG_3402.JPG

 

Continue treating the other panels:

attachicon.gifIMG_3404.JPG

 

When dry give another coat of Humbrol Clear. You will end up with something like this:

attachicon.gifIMG_3407.JPG

 

attachicon.gifIMG_3398.JPG

 

attachicon.gifIMG_3411.JPG

 

If I was doing this for real I would line and apply transfers before using the dye.

 

Just the roof to do now!

 

I have tried your technique and found it excellent up to this point. I had two coaches finished in beautiful teak I had never thought possible, with decals added and then varnished in Humbrol clear gloss. Then I tried the Modelmates Soot black. It does what it says: it is removable with water and cotton buds - however it also bleached the model. I presume this was some kind of chemical reaction with the varnish, but it left most of the coach sides streaked with white like they had been bleached and no amount of water, solvent or rubbing could do anything, other than lift my already bleached decals. In the end I reverted to my Games Workshop 'Abadon Black', heavily diluted, however it needed three coats to cover the bleached areas and now one of the coaches is so dirty as to be near black. This is sort of ok as I am modelling LNER immediately post-war when everything was pretty run down, however even the dirtiest colour photos I can find from that period are not as dark as mine now, so it is sort of spoilt. Hopefully as part of a mixed rake it won't stand out so badly.

 

I checked online to see if anyone else has experienced this - it happened to two coaches, processed separately (the first one didn't bleach as badly and the effect took longer to appear so I didn't notice it until the second coach started going white) - I can't find any reference to this but I did see that Modelmates are no longer producing this stuff. In which case what alternatives would you recommend for future coaches (I have several more in process)? The Games Workshop paints leave a nice finish but (a) dry very quickly and (b) can't be shifted once dry (unlike the modelmates stuff). Any thoughts from the Master?

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  • 2 weeks later...

I had a problem when recently trying to use Modelmates dyes to find they had all dried up, but never had the problem you experienced. Theoretically any water soluble ink should do it.

After further testing I think I understand better. I think the problem is coming not directly from the Modelmates soot but from the decal adhesive. I am using HMRC methfix decals, which use dilute methylated spirits to dissolve the glue. This leaves a white powdery residue on the (varnished gloss) model. An additional coat of varnish resolves this.

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In the original case I varnished the model after applying decals, before adding the diluted Modelmates soot, however I noticed that the decals all came loose and moved about. It may be that the Modelmates includes something that reacted with the decal adhesive again, or at least allowed it to spread again over the varnish. Having weathered the model I didn't think to re-varnish it again so tried to cover the ruin with additional Games Workshop 'Abbadon Black' (acrylic). The result (below) is now so dark as to be nearly black - much darker than any post-war colour photos I can find (and they were pretty dirty and neglected in that period, especially in back-water branchlines) - so I think this one will have to be redone from scratch. The white bleaching can still clearly be seen under all that black.

 

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As an alternative to the Modelmates I followed your suggestion, Mike, and tried water-soluble ink instead. I used Windsor and Newton, a combination of 'black' and 'peat brown' (to give a mixture of soot and general dirt effect), diluted. I tried this on one coach side only (an Ian Kirk 'all third' kit that I acquired from eBay sporting a BR crimson livery), so you can see the before and after together below.

 

I think the raw teak effect comes up nicely, with the different panel colours just showing through on the unweathered (upper) coach side.

 

The ink did tend to ball up rather than spread over the surface, so I might try adding a tiny drop of washing-up liquid next time to reduce surface tension. The result is quite good, I think, and more the sort of subtle effect you were getting.

 

post-33301-0-37093100-1514981372_thumb.jpg

 

One other point though: it did take a bit of rubbing to get it to spread the way I wanted into the crevices and leave the panels clearer, and - despite being done very gently - this did lift off the R in the 'LNER' decal. <Curses>. I will have to sort that, and the other side will get an extra coat of varnish before I start. 

 

post-33301-0-99793100-1514981378_thumb.jpg

 

However at least the bleaching effect is now sorted.

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Making good progress here. The three clerestories have come out nicely - just adding chassis and interior detail now. I found that (a) using the meths as sparingly as poss and (b) varnishing before and © after - mitigates the bleaching pretty completely. Also added a layer of decalfix to stop them moving during the weathering stage. The Windsor and Newton ink gives a nice result.

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Not fully assembled yet, but this gives the idea. They look better in real life than in these closeups, I think. The idea is for something imported from the M&GN, who had coaches like these, and relegated to a backwater branchline just prior to nationalisation. In reality they would probably have been painted plain brown by this stage; one can but dream.

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I've also re-done the Hornby Gresley Suburban Brake-third. And got the number right this time too.

post-33301-0-05857300-1515673143_thumb.jpg

Here in chequerboard stage.

 

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Teaked and decalled but not yet weathered with the black/brown ink. Chassis also to be weathered and rusted.

 

post-33301-0-12404600-1515673248_thumb.jpg

Also yet to be re-glazed. Not perfect, or as good as yours, but still an improvement on the Hornby printed teak and on its previous near-black dirtiness after the methfix/soot disaster.

 

To me this looks closer to prototype colour photos of the period. Again the photos don't flatter the model - the graining looks better to the eye than it does to the camera and the chequerboard panels do show up with nice contrast.

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Encouraged by the skill and invention of others, I had to have a go at this.

 

So here is a cruel close up of a bog standard Hornby Teak after I had completed the pumpkin undercoat and the Oil paint and Liquin top coat. Several coats of Klear for the finish.

 

Despite the somewhat clumsy finish, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed doing it and can, as they say, only get better!

 

Thanks to all for the inspiration.

 

post-1364-0-41637800-1516278208.jpeg

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I thought people might be interested to see that the method Mike showed for improving the door and window frames on the Hornby suburbans also works pretty well on the Dapol Gresleys in N gauge, which have exactly the same printing limitation. (re-posted from the "What's on your 2mm Workbench" thread).

 

post-3740-0-41768300-1520894498_thumb.jpg

 

There is obviously a bit less scope for texture in N gauge. I found the real trick was applying this with the right brush and brushing out some of the paint first - not as much as dry brushing, but half way. For a brush I found that a Humbrol "Palpo" 3/0 seemed to be perfect - its got a stiff and "scratchy" enough texture to control the paint neatly on small areas and still suggest something of a grain texture, but isn't totally wiry. The ventilators are the only areas big enough to really worry about the grain texture - even without a visible texture the depth of colour that results from the oils mixed with liquin seems to do the trick.

 

post-3740-0-44081500-1520894455_thumb.jpg

 

Justin

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  • 2 weeks later...

I finished the work on the Dapol Gresley. To summarise, I followed very similar steps to those detailed above

  • Disassembled the coach fully, including de-soldering the lighting pick up wires
  • Coat of Klear to seal the original finish
  • Mix of chrome yellow, small amount of burnt umber, and liquin applied with a scratchy brush over the areas left in red oxide
  • Another coat of Klear to seal
  • dark Games Workshop wash applied to bring out the door frames
  • "sepia" Games Workshop wash applied to the solebar to tone down the red oxide look
  • Buffers painted with Humbrol gunmetal - not sure what the weird gold colour Dapol used was about!
  • Edges of the window mouldings picked out in dark grey to minimise the prismatic effect
  • Window moulding given a coat of Klear to improve the clarity
  • Roof moulding given a thick wash of Revell Anthracite, then largely removed with a thinners soaked cotton bud
  • Roof airbrushed with relatively thin coat of Revell Anthracite

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the difference!

 

post-3740-0-94603900-1522016565_thumb.jpg

 

Justin

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  • 5 months later...
  • 7 months later...

I think I am getting the hang of this - it certainly seemed a strighforward technique. The brushes I used are simple make-up brushes from the dollar store. Being quite short and having a 'springiness' made the maninpulation of the paint very easy. 

 

IMG_1576.JPG

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The coaches are a couple of beaten up Kirk kits bought to test my abilities. Now to the brass kits in progress...

 

best,

Marcus

Edited by EHertsGER
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On 19/08/2013 at 21:54, MikeTrice said:

Paraphrased: "For the graining layers I use artists oil colours combining Burnt Umber with Windsor and Newton Liquin Original medium in roughly equal quantities. Very little is used as can be seen in the following image. I buy packs of 50 foil ashtrays from the pound shops which make excellant mixing pallettes....."

 

Mike, many thanks for sharing your technique. I've waited a long time to get around to having a go, and I just went for it.

Very pleased with the progress so far on this Chivers Finelines Dia 120 PIgeon Brake.

(Still some finishing touches to make of course).

 

 

Chivers Pigeon Van.jpg

Edited by GraemeWatson
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