Dock Green

[HeatherKay]

 

Hang the copyright! This is a snatch of an image from the cover of a Geoff Gamble book (Cheona Publications, "Railways in Profile Series No 1"). I guess the copyright is Geoff's, and I'm posting here for educational purposes.

 

It shows a detail from a rake of Presflos. The wagon on the left has Oleo buffers, giving the shiny shank appearance, while its neighbour has LMS-style self-contained spring buffers.

[chaz]

I didn't mean to make more work for you, Chaz. Invoke Rule One, I think.

 

I think we'd all be quite surprised at how little buffers get compressed in their daily lives. Their primary role was to absorb shunting forces to give some measure of protection to the contents of the vehicle. An average van or wagon might get pushed about by a shunter, but not to the extent that the buffer shank would get polished up. Three-link and Instanter couplings don't really need the buffers to be compressed to drop over the hook of a neighbouring vehicle, unlike a screw link, for example.

 

To save you the effort, I've just flicked through a couple of wagon books here. Even vans and wagons straight out of the works show the buffer shank to be the same relative shade as the head. It seems the practice was to paint the head and shank to prevent corrosion.

 

I'd post some images, but I'm not sure about copyright issues.

 

OH. POOH!   You are quite right, opening pages at random in Peter Tatlow's excellent LNER Wagons Vol. 4A I couldn't find a single wagon with bright rams - they vary from new black paint on out-shopped vehicles to weathered muck and rust on ones in service. So bright buffer shanks turn out to be another one of those modeller's cliches that have no veracity. Forty wagons....four buffers on each......two minutes each.....possible.....Oh - hang on - add the time taken to get them out of the cassettes and put 'em back - could be done...mutter....mutter. I will at least start with the Diag 86 van, when I weather the underframe.

 

Chaz

[Donw]

There seemed to be a lot of buffing action in steam days. I could hear them most of the time during in the yards at Reading during my childhood. There would be a clash clash clash clash as the shock of the wagon just propelled into the yard was cascade down a line of wagons already in there. Of course each collision may have made only a small movement of the buffer. I never thought to examine how much effect it had on the buffer shanks. By the mid sixties there was a lot less shunnting and fitted stock was becoming more common. There were a lot more instanters in use too which would have made a difference when running.

Good result on the weathering  Chaz.

 

Don

[Donw]

OH. POOH!   You are quite right, opening pages at random in Peter Tatlow's excellent LNER Wagons Vol. 4A I couldn't find a single wagon with bright rams - they vary from new black paint on out-shopped vehicles to weathered muck and rust on ones in service. So bright buffer shanks turn out to be another one of those modeller's cliches that have no veracity. Forty wagons....four buffers on each......two minutes each.....possible.....Oh - hang on - add the time taken to get them out of the cassettes and put 'em back - could be done...mutter....mutter. I will at least start with the Diag 86 van, when I weather the underframe.

 

Chaz

 

Trouble is will painting or blackening them interfere with the buffing action. On the tight curves I will need to use the compression of the inside buffers on corners helps?

 

Don

[chaz]

There seemed to be a lot of buffing action in steam days. I could hear them most of the time during in the yards at Reading during my childhood. There would be a clash clash clash clash as the shock of the wagon just propelled into the yard was cascade down a line of wagons already in there. Of course each collision may have made only a small movement of the buffer. I never thought to examine how much effect it had on the buffer shanks. By the mid sixties there was a lot less shunnting and fitted stock was becoming more common. There were a lot more instanters in use too which would have made a difference when running.

Good result on the weathering  Chaz.

 

Don

 

Yes Don. I too remember the almost musical clash of buffers as a loose coupled freight was buffered up on reversal. A sound now completely gone from our railways.

 

But Heather is quite right - looking through the LNER Wagon book I couldn't find a single wagon or van, either new or long in service, that exhibited bright steel rams. On reflection it is hardly surprising when you can see what a slack fit the shanks are in the housings.

 

Chaz

[chaz]

I do like your weathering technique, Chaz. I wish was brave enough to do it some of my models!

 

 

 

Well it is a matter of taste and I do know that many modellers don't like to weather their models. I think that it's a finishing touch that makes so much difference to the realism.

[HeatherKay]

If you can buff the shank with a brass or fibre brush, a quick dab with some Birchwood Casey might suffice. It doesn't need to be that clever, and the chemical action will darken the shank enough I would have thought.

 

When I build wagons and coaches, bright metal buffer heads are dunked in a solution. I rarely buff them afterwards, as the mild rusting effect of the chemical looks pretty good to me. A splodge of something black and sticky-looking on the faces of the heads goes a way to represent the grease often applied to the real thing. Of course, that often gets rubbed off when the models get played with, but there you go!

[chaz]

Trouble is will painting or blackening them interfere with the buffing action. On the tight curves I will need to use the compression of the inside buffers on corners helps?

 

Don

 

Buffer compression is a mixed blessing if you use Dingham couplings as I do. My advice would be to try it on a couple of wagons and see. If you do find that the buffers no longer work as you need them too you can drop the rams out (often retained by a 12BA nut) and polish off the paint with fine emery.

[Barnaby]

Chaz I like the weathered finish you get but why could you not just put a watery wash on allowing the wash to run into all the nooks and nannies then dry?  Then a quick dust over with a suitable dark powder emphasise it some more. Recognising your background you obviously have a good reason for doing it this way around so could you enlighten me please..

 

Cheers

[Donw]

Buffer compression is a mixed blessing if you use Dingham couplings as I do. My advice would be to try it on a couple of wagons and see. If you do find that the buffers no longer work as you need them too you can drop the rams out (often retained by a 12BA nut) and polish off the paint with fine emery.

 

Good idea Chaz but I usually scrunch the threads to stop the nuts dropping off (I have some wagons with lost buffers before doing that). Actually it is not that bad on short wagons more of a concern on six wheel siphons and the like. I must ry a bit of blackening and ease the housings with a broach on the next build.

Don

[chaz]

Chaz I like the weathered finish you get but why could you not just put a watery wash on allowing the wash to run into all the nooks and nannies then dry?  Then a quick dust over with a suitable dark powder emphasise it some more. Recognising your background you obviously have a good reason for doing it this way around so could you enlighten me please..

 

Cheers

 

You can! The effect is not the same however. It's not better or worse, just different. I have used both methods and been happy with both. The technique I used on the Diag. 86 van is a good way of getting a very grimy look and works best over a matte finish - which gives a good key to the retain the "dirt". I would use the watery wash technique to emphasise detail when I wanted a much cleaner (newer?) look. I wanted some fairly thick grime around the details on the diesel's roof as I intend to add some sooty oversprays which might well obliterate lighter effects. I find it easier to get a dark "nook and cranny" grime with the "put it on and clean it off" method.

 

If you are going to have a go yourself you could try out various ways - there is no one right answer and techniques that work for me might not suit you - and, of course, the reverse is true.

 

Martyn Welch's "The Art of Weathering" is a good book to suggest methods and materials and contains many tips and inspirational examples.

 

Hope that's some help?

 

Chaz

[chaz]

Good idea Chaz but I usually scrunch the threads to stop the nuts dropping off (I have some wagons with lost buffers before doing that). Actually it is not that bad on short wagons more of a concern on six wheel siphons and the like. I must ry a bit of blackening and ease the housings with a broach on the next build.

Don

 

A workable alternative to scrunching the threads is a splash of paint. A blob on the thread and the nut will "lock" it in place but will yield to a determined spanner!

[chaz]

My friend Jill came round yesterday and spent the morning making up matching black curtains for the extension board. I made her lunch (a rissotto) as a part quid pro quo. So now the layout is closer to being ready for Epsom, in fact it could go as-is.

We did find the self-adhesive Velcro on the layout curtains had a tendency to pull away when they were being removed at the end of a show. We treated it to an upgrade - "Mammoth" double sided tape which is tenacious and does not yield to even the most enthusiastic yanking.    I also put some heavy duty staples at intervals through the Velcro half and into the plywood of the baseboards.

 

Chaz

[chaz]

I use a thread locking compound, such as Locktite 222. My little bottle has lasted years. It is also used for crank pin nuts. It provides a reliable shake proof method of securing nuts on screw threads. Do not use a high strength retainer designed for fitting studs and bearings into housings. You will never get the nuts off again! Cyano is a no no as well.

 

Edit to add, place a small drop a scrap piece of plastic and apply with a cocktail stick.

 

Yes, good practice, but if you don't have any 222 then a touch of enamel paint - most modellers will have some - colour irrelevant......

[Siberian Snooper]

Yes, good practice, but if you don't have any 222 then a touch of enamel paint - most modellers will have some - colour irrelevant......

Or a drop of 'er in doors, nail varnish, don't get caught!

[chaz]

Or a drop of 'er in doors, nail varnish, don't get caught!

 

Can I use my own?

[Simond]

Alternatives include

    nail varnish, as has been recommended many times...

    copydex

    humbrol enamel

    pva

    evo stik

 

or just anything sticky that dries. 

 

I prefer the nail varnish, but evo stik is very good, and I tend to have it handy, whereas an undercover commando raid on Madame's cabinet is necessary to secure the nail varnish.  Mostly, if we are talking buffer-securing-nuts, my threads are tweaked with the needle-nose xuron pliers (which are the best tool...     in the world (almost)).

 

HTH

Simon

[Siberian Snooper]

Can I use my own?

What ever suits!!

[chaz]

More work on the Brush Type 2...

 

When I first got it I put a socket on the underside of one of the bogies, connected to the pickups.

 

 

The idea was that by putting the loco upside down and plugging in a power connection I could make the wheels rotate while I cleaned them. Of course being an AIA-AIA the middle wheels don't rotate under power but they can be rotated by hand. This feature also means that if I chocked the model up I could have the wheels rotating while I sprayed some paint so the rims would be coloured right round. It's interesting that if you do jack up a two bogie diesel so the wheels aren't taking the weight when you apply power only one set of bogie wheels rotate. I have found that Heljan diesels also do this. You can make the other bogie work by slowing down the first one's wheels with your thumb.

 

I had a stack of books on the floor where I could see them but out of the way of any paint drips, splashes or overspray....

 

 

A glance now and then kept at least some semblance of the way the these locos got dirty.

 

 

Spraying the bogies and the lower sides between the cabs with Humbrol 62 - matte leather - gave me a brake-dust build up.

 

 

I sprayed sections of the roof with matte black for exhaust stains and use the same colour to tone down the rather bright orange look of the brake dust. Tomorrow, once all this has dried, I will put some dirt details on. Oil leaks and dribbles, bare metal effects on steps etc

 

I will also clean that splodge off the cab side window....

 

Note the shedplate 34G under the builder's plate - a bit out of period for Dock Green but I'm claiming a few years either side of '59 (under Rule One).

 

Chaz

Edited March 29, 2015 by chaz

[chaz]

More on weathering....

 

I have never used weathering powders on my models but I have used talc a lot for texture effects and the dusty look it gives. As I was sloshing talc onto the Diag 86 van I was reflecting how much more useful it would be if it came in other colours, rather than just white....then the penny dropped!  Sue was going in to Eastleigh to buy lunch so I got her to pop into AC models to see if they had any weathering powders. She came back with a DCC Concepts set of four colours. Trying them out on the van, particularly on the underframe, was most encouraging.

 

 

Note buffer spindles now as grimy as the rest of the model  

 

 

The van fits right in with the squalor of Dock Green....In fact you can't tell if it's in the crimson or bauxite....YUK!

 

 

Just needs a pair of Dingham couplers (a job for tomorrow) and it can be added to the stock for Epsom.

 

Turning to D5612 I had fun adding more soot to the roof and brake dust colours to the lower body and bogies.

 

 

Checking photos I notice that the buffer shanks on these diesels were usually black with a thick layer of grease - a small job before it too goes into a cassette ready for the show.

 

 

I wouldn't want to rely just on powders for weathering but as a subtle addition to my usual techniques with enamels they are very useful.

 

 

I will post more snaps of D5612 as soon as I can pose it in the yard at Dock Green.

 

Chaz

Edited March 30, 2015 by chaz

[Barnaby]

Delightful work Chaz, it looks so good I think I can hear it Breathing, it's alive. 

[asa]

A fine job Chaz,I must try out these powders myself.

[chaz]

A fine job Chaz,I must try out these powders myself.

 

The effect of the powders is quite subtle on these two models. The pigments are strong and tiny amounts go a long way. I use the pot tops as somewhere to tap off excess colour from the brush without losing it. Incidentally I found the brush that came with the set rather too stiff so that it tends to scratch the existing airbrush hazes. I use a softer artists' brush which applies the powder without damaging previous work.

 

Chaz

Edited March 31, 2015 by chaz

[chaz]

The roof of the van was an interesting discovery. I used an airbrush on previous vans to put the roof colour on evenly. For some reason I tried to brush paint this one - I couldn't get a smooth finish, however carefully I worked I got brush marks in the matte finish. So I switched to a stiffer brush and used a stippling technique - now the brush marks look authentic - like a real van with it's painted canvas texture.   I will use this technique on any future van I paint.

 

Chaz

[brianthesnail96]

Lovely job on the 31 & on the van there Chaz- I have a couple of very ex- works 12T BR standard vans to "do" and will try using the matt black/ matt leather combination- that looks very well.

 

As for weathering powders vs talc, I found myself using both- I used an ice cream tub lid with a generous mound of talc in the middle, and weathering powders in the corners, and dragged the two (or more) together to get various shades- the powders alone look a bit flat I felt. I found a mix of "dark earth", "smoke" and talc gave a nice grime colour, by only mixing a small amount at a time I found the exact composition varied a little as I went, preventing it looking too uniform. I haven't yet braved an airbrush though! Like you I found that I needed a really soft brush to avoid scratching.

Edited March 31, 2015 by brianthesnail96