East Barnet Joint Stock - a workbench

[Chas Levin]

At last, the day came when I felt I'd done enough lining practise, I'd gotten over the second cold in a row, there were no urgent household jobs left undone, I'd had a good night's sleep, my stars, chakras and tax returns were all aligned - in fact, I couldn't think of another reason to put off starting the lining of the side panels!

Aside from the practising, I'd also been looking at how to mark, or guide the spacing of the lines out from the panel edges. The horizontals need to be 1mm away from the edges (the edges in this case being the underside of the top beading and the top of the footplate) but you need three hands if you're to hold the bow pen, the ruler you're using as a straight edge and some way to mark that 1mm spacing. If the gap were wider - 1.5mm for instance - you could put a 1mm piece of metal bar along the actual edge and line against that as your ruler, as the Haff 228 pen draws its line about 0.5mm in front of any low straight edge you use as a guide (that 0.5mm is slightly variable - you can hold the pen at slightly different angles relative to the ruler - but the best lines tend to come from the pen being pretty much vertical which gives the 0.5mm spacing). I couldn't succeed with a 0.5mm strip as the spacer to rule along because brass of that thickness doesn't stay straight easily and it's too fine and fiddly to use accurately enough for this purpose (though as I write this I wonder whether I could have used steel?).

After trying various things, in the end I used small pieces of 1mm x 1mm brass H-section from Eileen's Emporium - here are some test pieces placed on the 4mm scale photo to give the idea:

 

 

 

They were held in place in such a way that they stop about 0.5mm short of the ends of the outer white lines. This means you can place the bow pen tip just above where the line's going to start and align it visually, from above, with the edge of the H-section before starting the line - in the photo below, things are set up to do the white lines below the steel ruler, so the pen is placed under the ruler's lower edge, with the gap between the blades aligned with the top edge of that little piece of brass to the right of the lower right-hand corner of the cab door:

 

 

 

It worked very well (once I'd added some little rubber pads under the ruler to allow it to straddle the cab grabrails!) except that I'd failed to spot that ruling from left to right, the brass pieces on the right were touched by the pen (which is held leaning at about 45 degrees towards the direction of travel) and also, they got in the way between the pen and the grabrails, which you have to get the pen quite close to on each side; version two, using fewer brass pieces, did the trick though:

 

 

 

Still plenty of cleaning up to do of course, plus some evening up of lengths, but I'm very pleased to be over the hump of starting these panels, as these outer horizontals will be used as guides for the rest of the lines so I shouldn't need to mess about again with small pieces of brass section.

It wasn't really that much more difficult than various other parts of the livery but for some reason I'd built up considerable nervousness about jumping in.

Funny how some things assume frightening proportions and others seem easy, isn't it?

All the lining practice made a big difference though, because I'm now much more confident handling the pen which removed one source of tension.

The slight misalignment of the bunker (it's up at the front by a fraction) looks worse here than it really is, but I have had to allow for it in the lining. Lesson learned there: NEVER proceed to the next stage of assembly until the one you're working on is really, properly, fully and absolutely straight, level and true!!

 

Meanwhile, I picked up a copy of Steve Barnfield's "Painting & lining in the smaller scales", very interesting reading. It pre-dates Ian Rathbone's book by a few years and is not as detailed, but contains a lot of interesting and useful material. One thing I noted was his approach to triple lining like the white-black-white I'm doing here: he does the wide middle black first, adding the outer white lines afterwards. This is the opposite of Ian's system, which is to do the outer whites first, filling in the centre black afterwards. I have yet to start on filling in the centre black (boiler bands beckon) so I may yet revise, but having thought about it on and off for a while now, I still think it makes more sense to do the outer lines first and make sure they're as straight and as flat as possible and then fill in the middle, because the outer lines define the whole W-B-W band. Trying to add them afterwards seems to me to increase the possibility of them being uneven.

What do other people do please?

Edited April 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

Predictably, after a good night's sleep my perfectionist tendency reasserted itself and the lower bunker line wouldn't pass muster in the cold light of early dawn.

I realised that the line, while it's high, would serve as a convenient guide for its own replacement and therefore set about removing all but the last 2mm or so on each end. This was an interesting experiment in how long you cen leave a line and still remove it. Ian in his book relates having successfully lifted lines after 24 hours - here's my result after 18 hours:

 

 

 

Bear in mind that everywhere around this line will be painted over, either by black or dark green, so it's not necessary to aim for quite so pristine a clean-up.

After re-applying the line just above the original and removing the original line's end sections, we have something that looks rather better aligned:

 

 

 

Now, I need make notes on which lines were done on which dates, so that I know when it's safe to go over them with a cotton bud and polish off some of that cloud - even though I'll be over-painting, I'd rather start with as clean a surface as possible...

 

There's also a little thickening up to do on the lower side-tank line - I find the easiest way to do that is to go over the line with the box pen just to the side of the line where the thickening is most needed and then cut back with the spirit-dampened brush. Very good results are possible that way, though it does take some time.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

The outer horizontals on the other side are now done too:

 

 

 

As before, quite a bit of cleaning up to do; the lines on this side tend towards being slightly too heavy, where those on the first side had a slight anaemic tendency, but as I'll be cutting in dark green along one side and black along the other, I'll be able to correct some of the worst inconsistencies at that stage. After the festive days are over and these lines have gone off to an extent, I'll go over them again too, where things can be corrected.

 

I'm finding that two of the most important requirements for successful bow pen lining - especially with longer lines - are maintaining an absolutely consistent angle ith the pen - relative to the workpiece - and maintaining an absolutely consistent speed, once the line's been started. The slightest variation in angle places the ongoing line fractionally closer to, or further away from the datunm line, while the tiniest variations in speed vary the thickness of the line with startling immediacy

To say that this is not as easy as it sounds is an understatement! As a string player, I have some experience of moving my hand and arm at a slow and consistent speed, as well as maintaining an angle between the object I'm moving and another object, so I thought that my ability to maintain steady and consistent contact between bow and violin would help here. Perhaps it is helping - I think it must be - and without that experience, my efforts would be even worse. It feels very different though, a considerable reduction in scale being the most obvious change. Steve Barnfield mentions the many factors that can affect lining in his book, some of them quite difficult to identify - mood, temperature and so forth - and like him, I've found that some days it just isn't going to go well and you're better off doing another job. That's where a practice piece has come in handy for me - if I can get some decent lines on that first, I know it's worth turning to the model!

 

While I'm posting, I also tried to take a couple of pictures to illustrate my use of those small pieces of 1mm H-section brass to provide a visual guide for a line 1mm away from the edge of the panel, as I'm not sure my written explanation in a previous post - where the photos only showed the loco and the brass pieces was very clear. Here are a couple of photos showing the pen (empty, to prevent possible accidents!) poised to start a line, with the gap between the blades aligned to the outer edge of a brass piece. By continuing along the ruler edge as usual, having started the line 1mm away from - in this case - the footplate, providing the pen's angle is maintained consistently, the line is spaced correctly... providing the pen's angle is maintained consistently...

 

 

 

 

 

I should think that'll be it now until Boxing Day at least, so may I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas!

Edited April 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

Outer verticals now done on the tank and bunker sides too:

 

 

 

 

 

As usual, some cleaning up to do, after the lines have hardened for a couple of days.

 

The lines either side of the cab doors I did by using the grabrails as guides for the bow-pen - it worked well, but necessitated turning the piece round the other way to do the last 2-3mm because otherwise, the pen, leaning at about 45 degrees into the direction of travel, comes up against the handrail knobs. On the plus side, it was a convenient way to get the lines parallel and at a close and uniform distance from the grabrails.

 

Those at the rear bunker edges and the front tank edges I did using a 12mm piece of 2mm by 2mm right-angled brass. This brass angle is made of 0.5mm thick metal, so placing it over the edge of the loco body corner means it covers the first 1.5mm of the upward-facing surface...

 

 

 

...and as the Haff 228 draws lines 0.5mm from a suitably low straight-edge, you end up with lines 2mm from the corner!

 

The end of a wooden cotton bud stick, with a small groove cut into it, can be used to hold the piece of brass in place with one hand, while the bow pen is run along the edge - here's a photo taken just after a line had been put on but before any thinning. I did try to figure out a way to take the picture with the bow pen in place too, but without a third hand...

 

 

 

The next question is whether to proceed with the rest of the outer lines - on the rear of the bunker and the front faces of the tanks - or whether to start on the inner lines on the loco sides...

Edited April 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

I decided to stick with the outer lines, as I'm all geared up for them, spacers, dividers and eye all honed to the line to panel-edge separation... Next up then, the rear of the bunker and here's what we're dealing with, not exactly the wide open spaces on the sides of the loco and as you can see, my 2mm x 2mm angle spacer is partially obstructed by one of those rather attractive clover-leaf lamp irons:

 

 

 

When I fixed the lamp irons, I was still intending to finish this loco in plain black and I placed the irons by eye, referring to photos for the general positions but without precise measurement. A lesson learned there: in future, I'll map out such features to take account of future painting plans! Concerned at having to apply the lining over or around the irons, I looked for contemporary photos and discovered how few there are of loco rear ends, compared to sides and fronts: not surprising really - many photos have carriages or wagons behind the loco, apart from aesthetic considerations!

Here's one though, of C2 number 1534, a round cornered loco but it not only shows the bunker rear, but also shows an example of a lamp-iron with curved or clover-leaf base, like the ones I've used, with the incurved lining corner precisely following the curve of the base - here's an enlarged crop (with apologies for the quality):

 

 

 

Did the paint shop liaise with the builders - in the way that I should have planned the location of the lamp-irons - to ensure that they were positioned perfectly for the lining, or has the lining been tweaked to fit round the lamp-iron bases? Impossible to tell I think, as the angle of the shot precludes sufficiently accurate measurement. My inclination is the latter...

 

Amongst other rear-end shots that provide further insight into contemporary practice on this question is this one - again, a crop from a poor quality scan I'm afraid, but this time a squre-cornered loco, from Griffiths & Hoopers' “Great Northern Railway Engine Sheds - Southern”, taken at Retford, around 1900:

 

 

 

What strikes me about this photo is the apparently differing distances of the outermost lamp-irons from the bunker edges. The lining is clearly centrally placed - it would look terrible if it weren't - but as far as I can make out, the furthermost iron on the right has its centre line along the outer white line and its clover-leaf base almost entirely outside the incurved corner, whereas that on the far left has its centre line along the inner white line and its base on top of the corner, to the extent that it doesn't actually look as if the lining has been applied on top of that base. I suspect that latter point may be a factor either of the poor photo quality or of dirt on the loco, as the lining was usually applied on top of lamp-iron bases and other features and can clearly be seen in this photo running across the middle two irons' bases.

 

Once I'd seen this photo, plus a handful of others which showed quite a variation in the placing of lamp-irons and how the lining was applied on top of or around them, I stopped worrying so much: evidently, there's some room for interpretation here and provided it looks reasonably like one example or another, I'll be happy.

 

So, to work. Using the 2mm angle, this was all that could be done with the bow pen, given the obstruction of the lamp iron - I thought the right-hand rail knob would also intrude but I was able to complete that part by going in again from the other side:

 

 

 

That left the remainder to be brushed in and then thinnned down by spirit-dampened brush in the same way as for lines done with the pen, including going up over top of the lamp-iron base:

 

 

 

The angle of view makes this line (seen straight-on) look wider than its nearest neighbour (viewed at a very acute angle) on the rear of the bunker side but in real life they're a close match!

 

I must just also take a moment to recommend - again, as I know I've gone on about this before - Ian Rathbone's design for the lining / painting stand. By holding it in a ball and socket vice, the loco can be positioned at any angle, steadily enough to work on and without risk of handling damage:

 

 

 

 

 

It can even be positioned vertically (and by reversing the body on its mountings, with either end upwards) which makes working on the loco ends so much easier; in fact, I don't know how I could do the lining on the ends without it:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you're considering building one of these stands I would recommend it very strongly! I'll also be using it for other work - soldering, for instance...

 

Right, that's it for 2020: Happy New Year everyone!

Edited April 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

Happy New Year to everyone!

 

Outer lines on the bunker rear done, including filling in behind the upper lamp iron and the vac pipe for continuity:

 

 

 

Next are the front faces of the side tanks. Like the placing of the lamp irons on the bunker rear, I included grabrails on the tank fronts as I intended black LNER livery at the time of building; no question of removing them now, so the GNR lining will have to accommodate them and a small point of prototypical accuracy will have to take second place to Rule One .

Edited April 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

I put the outer vertical lines onto the tank fronts last night, but I'm not entirely sure they're right, in terms of  the unavoidable compromise over how far in from the outer corners they go.

The distances in from the edges of the lines either side of the rear bunker corners look equal in those few photos showing them, so I assumed that would also be the case for the side tanks' front corners. Photographic evidence is sketchy and ambiguous; I have none of a square tank variety (if anyone reading this has such a photo please would you post it here?) and judging how near the lines are to a rounded corner in a three-quarter front shot is difficult. However, there's a photo of C2 1505 in the RCTS green book which appears to me to show the front-facing lining being extremely close to the corner, actually going into the start of the curve.

 

The lining on the side will undoubtedly have been at the usual distance from the corner, so this suggests that the front-facing lines were closer to the corner than their side-facing neighbours and while the four or five similar photos I have are more difficult to be sure about, this one seems fairly unequivocal. The Painting Diagrams I have are no help either, as they don't show measurements for these areas. Having observed all sorts of small differences between locos presumably painted at different times and in different shops however, a small dimensional issue like this must also have varied.

 

One thing that is consistent in all the photos is that the outer vertical line is placed sufficiently near the edge to allow the inner one to run hard up against the side of the lower step. Taking all this into account, here's what I've done:

 

 

 

And here's how it looks from the front:

 

 

 

Moving between those two shots shows how deceptive the perspective can be, when comparing two dimensions like this - in fact, from the right angle, the two lines do look equi-distant from the corner they flank:

 

 

 

Well, there we are: nothing's perfect! I also considered the fact that if I moved the front lines any closer to the boiler, it would be almost impossible to have a sensible looking horizontal section of lining on the upper front surface by the time I'd got the incurved corners done (and the lower horizontal section might look a touch short too).

This way, I was able to use the grabrail as a guide (though it meant using the bow pen at the absolute limit of angle at which it would still draw), I was still just able to move the brush along the inner side of the line, under the grabrail, to thin it down and the outer incurved corner can follow the grabrail's support knobs...

 

I'd still be happier with a clear photo of a front tank corner on a square-cornered version of the loco though...!

Edited April 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

Stop Press, Big Excitement: in answer to my plea, I received a much clearer and much better resolution photo than any I'd had before (thank you again, Mike!), showing a three-quarter front view of the leading side-tank corner of 1539 in GNR livery - here's a crop, where I think you'll agree that the front-facing lines are unmistakably much closer to the (rounded) corner than the lines on the tank side:

 

 

 

I think this confirms not only the appearance of the spacing in the photo of 1505 I posted earlier, but it also suggests this to have been the case in those other photos in the RCTS book where it's more difficult to tell.

And if this was done on the round-cornered locos, I think - in the absence, for now, of similar square-cornered photographic confirmation - that we're perfectly justified in assuming it was also done on the earlier batch too!

Which is a relief.

I lay awake last night, wondering whether to go and remove the lines I'd done yesterday evening, before they set too hard: I decided not to, for various reasons, but I still wasn't happy. Happy now, though .

 

Next will be those short horizontals at the tops and bottoms of the front faces of the side tanks: a quick look last night suggested that the lower ones might be done using a small metal guide bar positioned on the footplate, at the foot of the tank front... not sure about the upper ones yet though.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

Well, I must thank Mike once again: having searched out and sent me the photo yesterday of round-cornered 1539, he very kindly followed it up this morning with the C2 GNR livery Holy Grail - a square-cornered photo, of 1020! Although the front of the tank is in quite deep shadow, you can very clearly see in this crop that the front-facing lining is a lot closer to the corner than the lining on the side:

 

 

 

I am enormously indebted, Sir: having resisted the urge to remove the lines after applying them, because I thought I must be wrong about the spacing, I'd then begun to worry that they were wrong and that they'd become one of those small but quite prominent errors that are all you can see when you look at the finished model! It is a fairly prominent area, after all...

 

Hooray for the internet, emails, photo-scanning, railways and helpful, friendly people!

Edited April 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Jon4470]

Hi Chas

 

Greatly admiring your lining quality ....... and your patience!

 

I was wondering what make of white paint you are using? It’s always a colour that I have struggled to get to flow nicely out of a lining pen. This is most likely down to operator error/just needing a new tin of paint However, it looks like, whatever you are using produces good results......so I figure that I should copy your choice!

 

Apologies if you have already mentioned this earlier........

 

Jon

[Chas Levin]

1 hour ago, Jon4470 said:

Hi Chas

 

Greatly admiring your lining quality ....... and your patience!

 

I was wondering what make of white paint you are using? It’s always a colour that I have struggled to get to flow nicely out of a lining pen. This is most likely down to operator error/just needing a new tin of paint However, it looks like, whatever you are using produces good results......so I figure that I should copy your choice!

 

Apologies if you have already mentioned this earlier........

 

Jon

Hello Jon, thank you for the kind words and no need to apologise - I did talk about paint choice a while back but I think I was still trying to decide what to stick with and I may not have written up the final decision: it's common or garden Humbrol, Gloss White 22. I'm using it straight out of a (fairly new) tin and actually, it could do with being a little thicker as I'm finding the lines spread a little after being laid down, even though the paint passes the cocktail-stick test every time (easy to do as you're loading a stick to load the pen). The spread doesn't worry me too much though, as I've got much better at thinning the lines down with a spirit-dampened brush after application; I just have to remember not to try and do too much lining in one go, so there's time to thin the lines I've done before they start to harden. I suspect it's partly to do with the ambient temperature and there's a bit of a conflict there - colder temperatures would keep the paint more viscous, but I find I don't work so well when it's colder!

Although I like the colour of the Phoenix Precision Gloss White a little better, it seems to be noticeably thinner than the Humbrol, so I put it aside for other jobs.

 

Which brand or type have you been using for white? And what colours have you found work better?

Edited January 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Jon4470]

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

My choice (throughout my life) has always been Humbrol if possible. However, I don’t think that I have ever liked the gloss black and gloss white. I have always found them to be too “gloopy”. I’m aware that the formulation has changed over the years, so I’m prepared to give them another go and, having checked my “lining box”, I have a brand new Humbrol 22 White in there (and also a brand new 21 Black ). The knowledge that you are getting good results with these is very reassuring and, hopefully, I’ll be able to get these to work well. 

 

The lining colours that I find work well are Red 19 and buff 7. The red is a bit like you describe the white...it verges on too thin/runny....but, as long as it is well stirred, it flows nicely and is controllable. The buff is thicker ( older style tin with the metal pressed out number) but still works well. I suspect the current tin will soon be too thick and then I’ll have to move onto the new tin that I have ( which also has the older pressed out number!).

 

Anyway, keep up the good work on the loco - it’s going to look fantastic when it is complete.

 

Jon

 

 

[Chas Levin]

Phoenix's gloss black defintiely gives better results brushed, but I haven't tried it in a bow pen yet. For red on this loco I used Phoenix's Vermillion - gloss too, it's actually labelled for traction engines but their 'normal' vermillion doesn't come in gloss...

 

I think I expressed myself badly though, about the Humbrol white: it's usually considerably thicker than their red - which I agree is always on the thin side - and it always passes the cocktail stick test, so I'm not sure why you'd have problems getting it to flow. For LNER teak coach lining I use a 50-50 mix of Humrol buff and yellow, saw it recommended somewhere but I can;t remember where.

 

The gloss white I'm using these days by the way is the newer, current type - paper label on the lid rather than that embossed numbers. Odd that different colours are so variable isn't it? You'd think there'd be more consistency across a single manufacturer's range...

 

Ian Rathbone recommends leaving Humbro tinlets with the tops off for a few days if I recall correctly, if some of the oil can;t be manually lifted from the top - they don't seem to separate now as the older formulations did. I haven't yet tried that, but I might do and report back.

 

I started on the side-tank fronts today: extremely awkward!! One of the pieces of 1mm H-section brass served as a guide, holding it fairly loosely against the tank front and using the pen at the absolute limit of the angle at which it will still draw, much as I had to do along the adjacent grabrails, because it's really a little wide for what's supposed to be a 1mm separation:

 

 

 

Both lines were very difficult to thin down, simply because of the very confined space and consequently limited access for the brush - here's how they turned out:

 

 

 

The amount of difficulty I had may be judged by the amount of cleaning up that you can see will need doing around the lower line! Another factor was the poorer paint finish on these surfaces - good enough to pass muster on its own as it's tucked in next to the boiler, but not great for lining... The lower one is still on the wide side, but I couldn't thin it down any further without it starting to disintegrate into the poor paint surface - it took two goes to get it where it it now and final thinning will have to be done by encroaching onto it from either side with the neighbouring black and dark green. Those two very short lines took an inordinately long time - hopefully the other two will take less time, now that I'm familiar with how to reach the places I need to reach.

Edited April 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

I've started work on the inner lines:

 

 

 

The right-hand inner one - running alongside the hand-rail - was done this morning and therefore hasn't been cleaned up yet, while the areas outside the inner panel will be over-painted so I'm not trying to clean those up too much, to avoid possible damage to the wider surface or to the lines themselves.

There's a sort of 'halo' effect going on with the photographs - I'm not sure of it's the high-contrast white-on-green, or the lighting (directional daylight from the left, LED from the right) - which makes the lines appear a little broader than they look in life (allowing for the fact that they're blown up to twice life-size here of course!).

I thought these inner ones would be a little easier than the outer ones, because you have the outer ones as guides, but getting them a uniform distance from the first ones is still as challenging!

 

I started out trying to come up with more of my 'little pieces of metal spacers' type of tricks but in the end fell back on small pieces of masking tape with blobs of marker pen! The ink blobs may look a bit imprecise, but the idea is that the leading edge of the blob facing the relevant dimension accurately delineates where the line should stop - hope that makes sense:

 

 

Edited April 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

Lining continues - those long lines are not fun, I have to admit. None of the eight is as straight or even as I would like, but the overall effect at sensible viewing distance (I'm spending a lot of time looking at the model under high magnification) looks okay I think:

 

 

 

I still don't quite understand how the lighting and focus affects the appearance of the lines in my photos, but the above picture is more successful in showing how the lines actually look in real life, without the halo-type effects. Diffused daylight is clearly better...

 

Both sides are now ready for corners (a whole new thing for me) but before that, there are inner lines to be done on the bunker rear and side-tank fronts, for which I'll be calling on a wide variety of increasingly inventive and differently shaped straight edges...

 

 

Edited April 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

The inner straight lines are done now on the bunker rear and on the front faces of the side-tanks:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I noticed after taking the photo of the bunker rear that I'd not quite continued the inner lower line fully, where it crosses the base of the second-from-left lamp iron: that's now been corrected.

 

The side-tank front verticals were particularly awkward to do; no question of getting the bow pen in there, but I found I could just touch the right area with a fine brush, held parallel to the boiler - here's a photo of what I mean, in case anyone else hass to line a similar area and is looking for ideas:

 

 

 

I've found that 'dotting in' - which I think from memory is what Ian Rathbone calls it in his book - is a very good way to add lines where the bow pen can't be used, when combined with use of a spirit-dampened brush afterwards to tidy up the edges. The lines you get aren't as solid or even as with the pen, but they can be tidied into shape with the brush afterwards in the same way - although accurately reaching the lines' edges with the brush in this case, behind the grabrails, was if anything more difficult than dotting the paint on in the first place - and for less prominent areas where there's no other choice, it's a lifesaver technique. In this case, the inner lines are largely hidden by those grabrails from normal viewing angles, so I think they'll pass muster.

 

Next job is to spend a little time with my practice panel, painting little curves...

Edited April 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

I spent some time practising painting curves between the ends of perpendicular straight lines yesterday; it's not as diddifult as it looks, though it does require precision and care. I wasn't sure quite how to put into practice Ian Rathbone's advice to use a small washer 'not as a template but as a guide...' but having ascertained that a 14BA washer would give the correct diameter (2.5 mm at 4mm/1ft - if you'd like to read more about how I measured the lining dimensions and came up with this and other measurements, please see the relevant posts earlier in this thread, from around September last year) I set to, experimenting on my piece of green painted practice brass. I immediately realised that of course you can't use the washer directly as a template to paint around, because the paint would leech under the washer and you wouldn't be able to see what was happening.

By positioning the washer half a mm away from where the curve needs to go however, and focussing - both visually and mentally - on keeping the distance between the washer's edge and the line you're laying down as constant as possible, it's reasonably straightforward to replicate something that approximates the washer's curve and, after cleaning up with the spirit-dampened brush, this is my first result:

 

 

 

Still some cleaning up to do of course and as with some of the longer straights, none of these curves is as even or uniform as I'd like, but that's why I started on the bunker rear as it'll be the least prominent and I've got the hang of things a little better now and will hopefully exceed these standards for the loco sides.

Amongst other things, I failed to ensure that the straights were of as absolutely uniform as possible length before starting on the curves; the tiniest fraction of a mm over or under length affects the positioning and the curvature of these designs and that affects how well the four corners of a panel appear to match, something that should have been more obvious to me. I'm going to let these stand though, as the overall look is acceptable and it is the back of the loco, which will spend most of its life facing rolling stock. Also, the lower two corners are disrupted by the lamp irons (as discussed earlier in this thread) so I don't think there's any point in taking too much time trying to have all four match because those lower two are always going to appear to be different from many angles.

I'm going to measure each individual pair of straights on the side areas very carefully indeed however, before adding in any curves. I've already checked them and cut a couple back to make sure none exceeds an acceptable dimension - some are a little short, but that can be adjusted at the same time as the curve is being painted.

 

I found that trying to use the brush to paint a line didn't give the required density - it needs to resemble those put on with the bow pen to some extent, at any rate enough to to blend in after other colours have been added either side and everything encased in varnish - so I went back to dotting in. This also makes the whole process quicker as extreme accuracy isn't so necessary because you're going over it afterwards with the spirit-brush.

 

I also realised that some spots won't accommodate even a 14BA washer because of panel furniture getting in the way, so out came the Xuron cutters and I used 2/3rds of a washer where necessary:

 

 

Edited April 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[MikeTrice]

To stop bleeding under the washer could you file a bevel around the edge of the face that butts up against the side?

 

Also worth considering making custom transfers for the corners.

Edited January 27, 2022 by MikeTrice

[teaky]

Or glue a spacer underneath?

[Chas Levin]

On 27/01/2022 at 21:51, MikeTrice said:

To stop bleeding under the washer could you file a bevel around the edge of the face that butts up against the side?

Thanks for the suggestion Mike; I'd still be nervous of capillary action grabbing the paint and I'm having enough of an issue cleaning the white residue from the green really thoroughly, so I'm not keen. At this scale (the washer is 2.4mm diameter) it'd be very fiddly. Interesting idea for other paint jobs though...

On 28/01/2022 at 05:53, teaky said:

Or glue a spacer underneath?

Thanks for that suggestion too Rob; I was just thinking as I typed the reply to Mike's suggestion that filing an even bevel round such a small washer would be difficult - finding a slightly smaller washer to use as a spacer might be easier.

 

On 27/01/2022 at 21:51, MikeTrice said:

Also worth considering making custom transfers for the corners.

Thanks for that idea too Mike; to be honest though, I'm not finding painting these corners too difficult and I am finding it very satisfying - my thoughts above about doing it weren't meant to suggest that it's problematic exactly, more to illustrate what's involved. I'd also be concerned about painted sections matching transfer sections...

Maintaining the gap at a reasonably accurate and constant size between the washer and the line, and matching the washer's curvature when it's a half-mm away from the line, is working fairly well for me so far, so I'm inclined to stick with it - here are the results of today's pre-breakfast session:

 

 

 

The eagle-eyed will spot that the upper horizontal lining isn't quite parallel to the upper edge beading of the bunker: that's the result of the compromise I mentioned a few pages back, where I only spotted long after assembly that the bunker isn't seated fully parallel to the footplate and it tips up at the front; I decided the lining should be parallel to the footplate rather than follow the bunker top, otherwise some of the lining would be out of alignment with other parts. It's not very noticeable at normal size and usual viewing angles, the way it is like this, in cruel close-up! Moral of the story though: get things straight before moving on!

Edited April 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Chas Levin]

Some good work yesterday, with all the outer curves both sides of the bunker and tank sides done:

 

 

 

 

 

Early morning sunlight reflecting from the windows of the houses opposite gives a new tint to things!

 

Next will be the outer curves on the tank fronts...

Edited April 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Jon4470]

4 hours ago, Chas Levin said:

 

 

 

 

 

Early morning sunlight reflecting from the windows of the houses opposite gives a new tint to things!

 

And the different shapes affect the colours.......the sides of the tanks look much lighter than the boiler (at least to my eyes)

[Chas Levin]

On 30/01/2022 at 12:31, Jon4470 said:

 

And the different shapes affect the colours.......the sides of the tanks look much lighter than the boiler (at least to my eyes)

I think that may be partly to do with reflected light in this case though: I could see, as I took the pics, that the flat tank sides were catching the reflected sunlight from over the road in a way that the rounded boiler surfaces weren't.

 

But I think you're right too, that the prominent white design lifts the tint more than the boiler bands' white content.

 

Very odd effect, isn't it? What puzzles me is what causes that sort of thing: is it a physical phenomenon to do with the light being reflected from the lighter colour combining with the darker colour's reflections to give an overall lighter impression to our eyes, or is it a mental effect whereby we perceive the overall lightness of the whole panel - combined green and white - to be lighter, even though the actual green is unchanged?

 

Do you ever look at Tony Wright's "Wright writes" thread on here, in the "Musings & Miscellany" section? Colour perception crops up in discussion there from time to time, often in relation to contemporary colour photos. Most recently there was a debate over the colour of the handrails in a photo of LNER Pacific "Sir Hugo", which also broadened into whether loco and tender were the same shade of green and if not, was it a photographic effect, a trick of the light or a result of paint-shop discrepancies. Interesting stuff.

 

Have you seen this before:

 

 

 

Believe it or not, squares A and B are the same colour! Verifiable in a number of ways - the Wikipedia page explains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checker_shadow_illusion

Edited April 7, 2022 by Chas Levin

[Jon4470]

Yes I do follow Tony’s thread....well, I try to keep up!

 

As you’ve said, many things seem to affect the perception of colour. The light, the reflections, the contrasts with other colours, the precise colour used may change over time, colours can change with age, weathering and then there are the whims of the works/ personnel (Darlington vs Doncaster for example). 

 

I suppose the optical illusion also demonstrates the we see what we expect to see. Now at this point my head starts to hurt....we are getting into the realms of philosophy.......what is reality?

 

Jon

 

 

 

 

[Chas Levin]

56 minutes ago, Jon4470 said:

Yes I do follow Tony’s thread....well, I try to keep up!

 

As you’ve said, many things seem to affect the perception of colour. The light, the reflections, the contrasts with other colours, the precise colour used may change over time, colours can change with age, weathering and then there are the whims of the works/ personnel (Darlington vs Doncaster for example). 

 

I suppose the optical illusion also demonstrates the we see what we expect to see. Now at this point my head starts to hurt....we are getting into the realms of philosophy.......what is reality?

 

Jon

The silver lining is though that factors like colours changing over time, differences between Doncaster and Darlington and so forth mean we don't need to get too stressed about precise colour matching.

 

Steve Barnfield, in his "Painting & Lining in the Smaller Scales", mentions speaking to an elderly gent who'd been a boy apprentice at Doncaster. This bloke had noticed a pair of freshly repainted Gresley Pacifics in the yard and remarked on a difference in the shade of green - slight, but noticeable. On enquiry, he learned that one had been painted on the day shift, one on the night shift, so the paintshop foreman had apparently mixed two batches by eye to slightly different hues.

 

Good news for us modellers!!