All-new Heljan 47 in 00 gauge

[97406]

Another vote for the pre 84 lemony shade of yellow being correct on he Bachmann model. Ambient lighting and other factors will play their part in photographs. I used pre 84 yellow on my last detailing projects (classes 40 and 81) and it does appear pale compared to the later shade but it is technically correct. 

Edited March 11 by 97406

[dj_crisp]

12 hours ago, Albie the plumber said:

Well , looking at both side on , the overly deep shelf below the windscreen issue has just been blown out of the water.

At least that's what my eyes are telling me . 

 

Thanks for sharing the photos. Really useful.

 

I'd be interested in a side on shot next to a Bachmann Mk1 for both models if you have them.

[dj_crisp]

5 hours ago, 97406 said:

Another vote for the pre 84 lemony shade of yellow being correct on he Bachmann model. Ambient lighting and other factors will play their part in photographs. I used pre 84 yellow on my last detailing projects (classes 40 and 81) and it does appear pale compared to the later shade but it is technically correct. 

 

Aaah the fun of paint matching yellow. I've kind of given up using yellows out of a tin these days and mix my own. Helps with some variety as each time they're different!

 

I had a tin of precision pre-84 yellow which was a perfect match for Bachmann yellows on post 84 stock. A second tin now no longer matches and is more lemony. Their post 84 (& railmatch) didn't match and looks more orange so I now mix my own as a combo of pre n post 84s.

 

When I was doing my pair of 70s bubbles I really noticed all photos of my 122 seemed lighter than the 121 despite being from the same period and similar repainting times.... But then again I found photos of the 122 freshly painted where the shade of yellow is closer to post 84 than pre. Weather conditions and camera trickery really makes it a hard call as to what looks right.

 

So I've gone with a lighter shade on the 122 below Vs the 121. Not sure if it's right or not but I like the difference! My photo is on a sunny day so even this looks a tad more orange than say a cloudy day today.

 

 

(I wasn't very scientific seeing as I was batch spraying so I started out with roughly 90:10 pre 84 Vs post 84 in the mix for the 122... then kept adding post 84 to the mix till I finished on some 90s DMUs 😀)

 

Rightly or wrongly I don't get on with the lemon yellows straight out of the tin.... but they're probably totally accurate Vs the paint spec!

[97406]

31 minutes ago, dj_crisp said:

 

Aaah the fun of paint matching yellow. I've kind of given up using yellows out of a tin these days and mix my own. Helps with some variety as each time they're different!

 

I had a tin of precision pre-84 yellow which was a perfect match for Bachmann yellows on post 84 stock. A second tin now no longer matches and is more lemony. Their post 84 (& railmatch) didn't match and looks more orange so I now mix my own as a combo of pre n post 84s.

 

When I was doing my pair of 70s bubbles I really noticed all photos of my 122 seemed lighter than the 121 despite being from the same period and similar repainting times.... But then again I found photos of the 122 freshly painted where the shade of yellow is closer to post 84 than pre. Weather conditions and camera trickery really makes it a hard call as to what looks right.

 

So I've gone with a lighter shade on the 122 below Vs the 121. Not sure if it's right or not but I like the difference! My photo is on a sunny day so even this looks a tad more orange than say a cloudy day today.

 

 

(I wasn't very scientific seeing as I was batch spraying so I started out with roughly 90:10 pre 84 Vs post 84 in the mix for the 122... then kept adding post 84 to the mix till I finished on some 90s DMUs 😀)

 

Rightly or wrongly I don't get on with the lemon yellows straight out of the tin.... but they're probably totally accurate Vs the paint spec!

 

One of the strangest yellows I’ve matched was the one Heljan use on the 33. It looks absolutely fine to these eyes but I just couldn’t match Railmatch pre/post 84 yellow to it. I ended up getting perfect match from Phoenix Precision Post 85 Warning Panel Yellow with a little white added. I was only patch painting around where I’d removed the headlight.

[50A55B]

13 hours ago, Albie the plumber said:

Well , looking at both side on , the overly deep shelf below the windscreen issue has just been blown out of the water.

At least that's what my eyes are telling me . 

This photo shows the big problem for me. Bachmann's headcode glazing is correctly slightly recessed (although the real thing graduates from nearly flush at the bottom to more recessed at the top) whereas the Heljan panel looks fairly flush to the front . If someone could check the size of the headcode characters that would be interesting, they should be 4mm in height as the real things were 1 ft tall. 

Here's a close up of the real thing.

[50A55B]

Duplicate post.

Edited March 11 by 50A55B
Duplicate post

[John Tomlinson]

13 hours ago, rob D2 said:

Nah - humourous more like 

 

Indeed, something we need more of in our hobby.

 

On that subject, I came across a pair of Lima 47's over the weekend, bought new for around £20 each in a Beatties/ Modelzone sale ages ago. One is in the Porterbrook livery, the other the Royal Claret. Been in a stock box for years, but both ran perfectly when placed on the track. Good shape, nice livery application (except for the yellow bits which are unpainted plastic), and no need for this digital sound malarkey either. No sticky out handrails, and ripe for a bit of upgrading.

 

TTFN,

 

John.

[cctransuk]

1 hour ago, 50A55B said:

This photo shows the big problem for me. Bachmann's headcode glazing is correctly slightly recessed (although the real thing graduates from nearly flush at the bottom to more recessed at the top) whereas the Heljan panel looks fairly flush to the front . If someone could check the size of the headcode characters that would be interesting, they should be 4mm in height as the real things were 1 ft tall. 

Here's a close up of the real thing.

 

This is the problem with ever more versions of the same subject - miniscule 'errors' are now deemed to be a "big problem".

 

It would require one to inspect the model from a matter of a couple of inches / centimetres in order to detect the lack of taper of the inset of the headcode glazing.

 

There will always be variations in interpretation by different model producers - I doubt that there will ever be the 'perfect' model.

 

It may well be that the ultra-critical are professionally familiar with the prototype - but this type of criticism is in danger of unfairly denigrating an excellent model.

 

CJI.

[rob D2]

58 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

This is the problem with ever more versions of the same subject - miniscule 'errors' are now deemed to be a "big problem".

 

It would require one to inspect the model from a matter of a couple of inches / centimetres in order to detect the lack of taper of the inset of the headcode glazing.

 

There will always be variations in interpretation by different model producers - I doubt that there will ever be the 'perfect' model.

 

It may well be that the ultra-critical are professionally familiar with the prototype - but this type of criticism is in danger of unfairly denigrating an excellent model.

 

CJI.

I disagree.In these days of laser scanning , CAD design etc and the fact that numerous of the prototype still exists , there’s no interpretation required….just accuracy . It’s not unfair in this day and age to expect excellence , especially for the prices we now pay - “ good enough “ just isn’t good enough .

[dj_crisp]

34 minutes ago, rob D2 said:

I disagree.In these days of laser scanning , CAD design etc and the fact that numerous of the prototype still exists , there’s no interpretation required….just accuracy . It’s not unfair in this day and age to expect excellence , especially for the prices we now pay - “ good enough “ just isn’t good enough .

 

I pretty much agree but also accepting that not everything on a locomotive will be able to scale down. No excuses when it comes to basic shape. Its funny that models I know were created from scans still exhibit errors etc.

 

And ultimately its down to the CAD designer who puts it all together... you can see the ones that are outsourced or have a lack of time as some obvious errors creep in Vs those done by a passionate designer with knowledge of the prototype.

 

I'm not sure where this 47 sits ;)

[Roy Langridge]

I find it slightly annoying that minuscule errors in diesel locos seem to be less acceptable that miniscule errors on steam locos.
 

So often we hear criticism of the cladding not being properly represented or the profile or a wheel being slightly incorrect, yet fundamental shape errors in diesels should be accepted. Yes the headcode glazing recess is small, but the face of a loco is so important and that appearance is changed, as it is by footsteps in the wrong place. 
 

Roy

[spamcan61]

1 hour ago, rob D2 said:

I disagree.In these days of laser scanning , CAD design etc and the fact that numerous of the prototype still exists , there’s no interpretation required….just accuracy . It’s not unfair in this day and age to expect excellence , especially for the prices we now pay - “ good enough “ just isn’t good enough .

Laser scanning gets you a point cloud that still needs interpretation into a CAD drawing; for that matter there's no guarantee that any 1:1 scale shape will be mouldable in a scale model made in a completely different way from completely different materials. The 1:1 scale subjects of a given loco or whatever aren't necessarily going to be identical after a few years on service, with repairs / wear and tear / sag.

[MikeParkin65]

6 minutes ago, Roy Langridge said:

I find it slightly annoying that minuscule errors in diesel locos seem to be less acceptable that miniscule errors on steam locos.
 

So often we hear criticism of the cladding not being properly represented or the profile or a wheel being slightly incorrect, yet fundamental shape errors in diesels should be accepted. Yes the headcode glazing recess is small, but the face of a loco is so important and that appearance is changed, as it is by footsteps in the wrong place. 
 

Roy

Railway modelling is a very broad church with lots of competing priorities. There is a very popular thread on this forum where rtr models, whilst often lauded as being far more accurate than anything the majority could build from a kit or even scratch are held as being of less worth than something handbuilt. The majority of kit built loco's are lumpen and crude compared to the crisp moldings of modern day rtr but the priority for their builders and operators are different. They often use the term 'layout loco' and I think this is a useful concept describing something that looks the part doing what its designed to do.

 

Some want to focus solely on the model and compare it with multiple images of the prototype - nothing wrong with that its a broad church. Happily purchase of any model is voluntary so if you dont like it you can simply move on, nothing lost. 

 

I enjoy models, I enjoy new versions of existing models and I'm happy for all sorts to co exist on my layout. The priority for me is running quality and long term reliability and the established manufacturers still in my experience retain the upper hand in this respect. 

[50A55B]

2 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

This is the problem with ever more versions of the same subject - miniscule 'errors' are now deemed to be a "big problem".

 

It would require one to inspect the model from a matter of a couple of inches / centimetres in order to detect the lack of taper of the inset of the headcode glazing.

 

There will always be variations in interpretation by different model producers - I doubt that there will ever be the 'perfect' model.

 

It may well be that the ultra-critical are professionally familiar with the prototype - but this type of criticism is in danger of unfairly denigrating an excellent model.

 

CJI.

I don't think it is unfairly denigrating the model, which is in overall terms pretty good. It does however have a 'face' issue which is so important for diesels. The headcode area doesn't look right to me, as evidenced in the photos.

If you're happy with it fair enough, they won't be getting any of my money.

[rob D2]

1 hour ago, MikeParkin65 said:

Railway modelling is a very broad church with lots of competing priorities. There is a very popular thread on this forum where rtr models, whilst often lauded as being far more accurate than anything the majority could build from a kit or even scratch are held as being of less worth than something handbuilt. The majority of kit built loco's are lumpen and crude compared to the crisp moldings of modern day rtr but the priority for their builders and operators are different. They often use the term 'layout loco' and I think this is a useful concept describing something that looks the part doing what its designed to do.

 

Some want to focus solely on the model and compare it with multiple images of the prototype - nothing wrong with that its a broad church. Happily purchase of any model is voluntary so if you dont like it you can simply move on, nothing lost. 

 

I enjoy models, I enjoy new versions of existing models and I'm happy for all sorts to co exist on my layout. The priority for me is running quality and long term reliability and the established manufacturers still in my experience retain the upper hand in this respect. 

Very true .

For me the locos are the stars and not evoking the feeling of the prototype is like…Ryan gosling fluffing his lines !

I try to be humble though when I remember all those Lima I collected , great shapes but mechanisms not quite up to it for the 90s-2000s

[andyman7]

6 hours ago, dj_crisp said:

 

Aaah the fun of paint matching yellow. I've kind of given up using yellows out of a tin these days and mix my own. Helps with some variety as each time they're different!

 

I had a tin of precision pre-84 yellow which was a perfect match for Bachmann yellows on post 84 stock. A second tin now no longer matches and is more lemony. Their post 84 (& railmatch) didn't match and looks more orange so I now mix my own as a combo of pre n post 84s.

 

When I was doing my pair of 70s bubbles I really noticed all photos of my 122 seemed lighter than the 121 despite being from the same period and similar repainting times.... But then again I found photos of the 122 freshly painted where the shade of yellow is closer to post 84 than pre. Weather conditions and camera trickery really makes it a hard call as to what looks right.

 

So I've gone with a lighter shade on the 122 below Vs the 121. Not sure if it's right or not but I like the difference! My photo is on a sunny day so even this looks a tad more orange than say a cloudy day today.

 

 

(I wasn't very scientific seeing as I was batch spraying so I started out with roughly 90:10 pre 84 Vs post 84 in the mix for the 122... then kept adding post 84 to the mix till I finished on some 90s DMUs 😀)

 

Rightly or wrongly I don't get on with the lemon yellows straight out of the tin.... but they're probably totally accurate Vs the paint spec!

The other big issue with yellow in the real world is that as colour it is very prone to fading - just look at photos of withdrawn locos that have sat outside for a while. So the paint colour 'off the brush' so to speak does not necessarily equate to the in-service look (my photo of 82003 dumped at Willesden in the 80s)

 

[cctransuk]

3 hours ago, rob D2 said:

I disagree.In these days of laser scanning , CAD design etc and the fact that numerous of the prototype still exists , there’s no interpretation required….just accuracy . It’s not unfair in this day and age to expect excellence , especially for the prices we now pay - “ good enough “ just isn’t good enough .

 

There is a belief - nay, absolute conviction - that laser scanning produces the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; WRONG!

 

As has been mentioned, it produces an array of points that mostly existed on the prototype. No technology is infallible - there are plenty of opportunities for erroneous data to be included.

 

At present, it is down to a human to make sense of what the technology reports - perhaps  one day, AI will do it better; (or perhaps not).

 

Ask yourself this - if laser scanning is infallible, why would a designer go out of their way to produce an incorrect model from the 'perfect' scanned data to which they had access?

 

Nothing is perfect - and playing the blame game will not change that.

 

You pays yer money and you makes yer choice - it won't be the same choice that others make, but that's life!

 

CJI.

[Butler Henderson]

This paint supplier considers the yellow has have turned more orange over time

 

https://paintman.co.uk/?s=warning+panel&post_type=product&type_aws=true

Edited March 11 by Butler Henderson

[Roy Langridge]

1 hour ago, Butler Henderson said:

This paint supplier considers the yellow has have turned more orange over time

 

https://paintman.co.uk/?s=warning+panel&post_type=product&type_aws=true

Not just their belief, it is a fact that the specification changed mid-1980s.

There was a period where “old stock” was used up, but generally anything repainted from the second half of the 1980s on had a more orange shade. 
 

Roy

Edited March 11 by Roy Langridge
Typos

[Chiltern Junction]

13 hours ago, cctransuk said:

 

There is a belief - nay, absolute conviction - that laser scanning produces the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; WRONG!

 

As has been mentioned, it produces an array of points that mostly existed on the prototype. No technology is infallible - there are plenty of opportunities for erroneous data to be included.

 

At present, it is down to a human to make sense of what the technology reports - perhaps  one day, AI will do it better; (or perhaps not).

 

Ask yourself this - if laser scanning is infallible, why would a designer go out of their way to produce an incorrect model from the 'perfect' scanned data to which they had access?

 

Nothing is perfect - and playing the blame game will not change that.

 

You pays yer money and you makes yer choice - it won't be the same choice that others make, but that's life!

 

CJI.

 

 

Great post. Even if you do have a 100% accurate scan, some things just do not scale. What may be a visible feature in real life such as a rivet, fold or ridge in the body may be so tiny at OO scale that it isn't visible once painted, so it has to be made overscale as a result to retain the 'look'.

 

Materials do not scale nicely either. Loco bodies should be thinner than tissue paper at 1:76 scale and glazing should be thinner than a piece of printer paper. A 100% accurate model in 4mm would be so fragile you would not be able to pick it up without it bending in half or breaking under its own weight. So again, compromises are needed. Despite plastic loco bodies getting finer, they are still hundreds of times over scale and plastic doesn't bend and flex to conform to a shape like metal, it has to be moulded or cut and that means it will never look exactly the same.

 

And then there is the paint. To be true to scale, paint should be less than 1/1000 of a mm thick on an OO model. That is physically impossible with current technologies but it has impacts on the way light reflects and casts shadows on a model.

 

So given you cannot create a 100% accurate scaled copy, all manufacturers have to make decisions on how to scale their designs accordingly. Heljan and Bachmann have made different choices using what is likely to be exactly the same data points. Neither is right or wrong, they are both just interpretations.

 

[JN]

1 hour ago, Chiltern Junction said:

 

 

Great post. Even if you do have a 100% accurate scan, some things just do not scale. What may be a visible feature in real life such as a rivet, fold or ridge in the body may be so tiny at OO scale that it isn't visible once painted, so it has to be made overscale as a result to retain the 'look'.

 

Materials do not scale nicely either. Loco bodies should be thinner than tissue paper at 1:76 scale and glazing should be thinner than a piece of printer paper. A 100% accurate model in 4mm would be so fragile you would not be able to pick it up without it bending in half or breaking under its own weight. So again, compromises are needed. Despite plastic loco bodies getting finer, they are still hundreds of times over scale and plastic doesn't bend and flex to conform to a shape like metal, it has to be moulded or cut and that means it will never look exactly the same.

 

And then there is the paint. To be true to scale, paint should be less than 1/1000 of a mm thick on an OO model. That is physically impossible with current technologies but it has impacts on the way light reflects and casts shadows on a model.

 

So given you cannot create a 100% accurate scaled copy, all manufacturers have to make decisions on how to scale their designs accordingly. Heljan and Bachmann have made different choices using what is likely to be exactly the same data points. Neither is right or wrong, they are both just interpretations.

 

 

Yellow is yellow. Light sources (bulbs or the sun) might affect colour perception. I know from photography that light bulbs are about 3300k and sunlight is about 5500k (the higher the k value, the bluer/colder the temperature). Bleach (fade), dirt etc will impact on how a colour is perceived. Old photographs (can) fade and the way screens are calibrated (RGB etc and emit blue light) might have an impact, too. However, yellow will still reflect the yellow part of the yellow light spectrum. Different wavelengths, so the colour can be measured objectively assuming the other variables to be fixed. I do not understand why a colour would change with the size of an object given light behaves the same way for all things in all places. However, I get most people want to operate their new model and do not have a spectrometer to measure everything.

 

I imagine the people involved in the design process know how to mix various colours to get the correct colour from a British Rail manual. Basically, the same idea as the Deluxe colour charts. If not, I imagine design teams order paints to that specification rather than buy a few tins of the closest matching Humbrol.

[Hal Nail]

2 hours ago, Chiltern Junction said:

Heljan and Bachmann have made different choices using what is likely to be exactly the same data points.

 

When I measured a real headcode panel with a tape measure, I had no idea I was performing at the outer edge of human capability.

 

 

[cctransuk]

It would seem that a significant proportion of the members who are posting in this thread feel that they could do a better job than the mainstream model producers.

 

Now that we have easily accessible CAD design software, and domestic 3D printers, perhaps it is high time that one or more of these dissatisfied potential model purchasers demonstrated how model design SHOULD be done?

 

After all, we are assured that all that is needed is basic competence with a tape measure - surely it cannot be that difficult to produce a design for the definitive Brush Type 4?

 

I await developments with interest - but I won't hold my breath!

 

CJI.

[Hal Nail]

1 hour ago, cctransuk said:

It would seem that a significant proportion of the members who are posting in this thread feel that they could do a better job than the mainstream model producers.

 

You don't have to have played at the highest level to coach!

 

Perhaps time to go and do some modelling. I need some 7mm conflat transfers - maybe you can advise if all the interpretations are equal :)

[97406]

3 hours ago, cctransuk said:

It would seem that a significant proportion of the members who are posting in this thread feel that they could do a better job than the mainstream model producers.

 

Now that we have easily accessible CAD design software, and domestic 3D printers, perhaps it is high time that one or more of these dissatisfied potential model purchasers demonstrated how model design SHOULD be done?

 

After all, we are assured that all that is needed is basic competence with a tape measure - surely it cannot be that difficult to produce a design for the definitive Brush Type 4?

 

I await developments with interest - but I won't hold my breath!

 

CJI.

 

I'd absolutely love a job like that, though I've already carved out a career in a different field and my main goal these days is retirement.

 

Looking at the recent output of Accurascale, Bachmann and many Heljan releases, it can be done and done well.

 

I suspect where issues are identified early in the process and not rectified there may be budgetary constraints at play which must be frustrating for those involved. As a modeller I am happy to put right what I can, Bachmann's Class 40 being case in point.

 

As for Heljan's 47, the NSE one looks OK thanks to its livery so if a sound one were to pop up for a decent price, it may just end up on my layout.

Edited March 12 by 97406