Bing for Bassett Lowke Midland Rly Carriage Roof Colour

[Bassettblowke]

I’ve recently acquired one of these carriage’s in pretty poor shape, the most obvious stand out smack you in the chops problem being the poorly applied repaint job on the roof.

Not only is it heavily brushed marked it’s also flat and filthy, looking at it I suspect it may be old white lead primer. I’ve searched around a bit and so far every picture I’ve seen shows MR stock with what appears to be grey roofs, as always when viewing black and white photographs gauging colour or shade of colour is problematic. 
As a B/Lowke model does anyone know what the original roof colour would have been ? And secondly does anyone know what colour the full size coach roof was in Railway service.

I also had a look at the Darstaed 6 wheel MR coach offerings and they are grey.

 

Any opinions welcome 

 

Edited December 18, 2020 by Bassettblowke

[sncf231e]

No one seems to have any Midland gauge 0 Bing for BL coaches. I also do not, but I have a Bing for BL gauge 1 Midland coach which I think is all original including roof, see pictures:

 

May this is of any help?

And here it goes through the garden:

 

And maybe someone on this https://www.classicogauge.net/forum/index.php forum could be helpful?

 

Regards

Fred

[Bassettblowke]

Fred

That is an exquisite example and the roof colour seems to confirm what I’ve unearthed from internet searches. Several paint suppliers also specify light grey for MR coaching stock roofs.

During the process of removing the old paint layers from the roof three colour were encountered, the crumbling white, black and grey.

Here’s a picture of the roof stripped and ready for paint, my initial thought once it was cleaned up were  to just give it a coat of satin lacquer as I was quite taken by the pewter/grey finish. I am now edging toward paint especially after seeing that  gorgeous example.

 

Edited December 19, 2020 by Bassettblowke

[Bassettblowke]

Some pictures of further progress on this coach, the roof has had its primer coat and the first topcoat it’s awaiting a quick rub down and it’s final coat. The coach came devoid of wheels, bogies and the mounting points. As a temporary measure the bogies are spaced off the bottom of the coach by a column  of 5 washers pending a suitable bogie mount being fabricated. The couplings have been changed and it now rolls quite well. As can be seen the coach sides show distinct signs of damage to the litho, I am undecided about whether or not to tackle it or leave well alone.

[Compound2632]

As to the real thing, Midland and early LMS carriages had grey roofs with the section below the rainstrip painted black.

 

As to the Bing models, despite the Midland livery, both the carriages shown are clearly based on LNWR prototypes - the long windows on the corridor side are the give-away.

[sncf231e]

10 hours ago, Bassettblowke said:

As can be seen the coach sides show distinct signs of damage to the litho, I am undecided about whether or not to tackle it or leave well alone.

 

Since the coach looks rather good as it is now, I would not touch the litho.

Regards

Fred

[Bassettblowke]

The damage to the litho is rather odd and I believe this is down to the prior attempted removal of a sticky substance (varnish at a guess) which had been applied sometime in the past. When first purchased it was very tacky to the touch subsequent experiments revealed that the litho had been penetrated by the varnish and attempted removal with a cotton bud with a variety of cleansers, thinners etc on a very minuscule part of the livery always produced an instant crimson lake hit on the cotton bud. However Pledge multi surface cleaner whilst not removing the varnish coating has taken away the tackiness and it can now be handled without leaving distinct fingerprints.

I have another ongoing issue with a postwar B/L coach which at first glance looks like it has been wrapped in cling film leaving behind a distinct fractured plastic film which is also tacky to the touch. The Pledge also works on this to a degree removing a good 80% of the offending film and the tackiness that went with it.