Blog- Kylesku and The Mound Sc. region in 4mm - Polishing up Hornby Staniers

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The original releases of the Hornby Stanier, while good models, were blessed with a very dull finish that did not sit well with my other Stanier stock- Comet sides on Airfix cores, and finished with a mix of cellulouse and acrylic spray paints, so they have sat for some time waiting for attention. I will begin by saying that nothing I have done has been original but a straightforward crib from an article in MRJ some considerable time ago, but AFAIK there has not been much said here about this, so I have recorded my efforts.

 

The basis of the process is T-cut, which is applied and buffed off, and which leaves a lovely glossy surface that matches other stock far better than the original finish. Apart from a tiny bit of lining on one coach it did not affect the surface at all, although a Bachmann coach did lose most of its particulars in the process, but that is easily sorted.

 

Some pics of WIP.

Firstly some before and after views of the glossing up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once this is done the next stage is to tackle the prismatic effect of the thick glazing strips. The original article suggested black but I found a crimson worked better- all the clear glazing has to be painted to improve the visual effect - as shown here.

 

 

 

The improvements can be seen in these shots.

 

 

 

 

Finally,two shots of in service vehicles- one of the modified carriage alongside an original, albeit not too clear, and of the two I did running together.

 

 

 

This was a straightforward piece of work that made a big difference to the models- I also put some Peco interiors in place- and they are now on the layout instead of lying in a cupboard, which is what should be. One less task to do. I don't know if later batches of these coaches had the same problems as I didn't buy any others, being happy enough with my existing hybrids, but it has transformed these two anyway.

Richard

 

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