Hornby castle arriving?

[gwrrob]

Really tempted to make new post with the title 'Great Western Castle Arrives at last' and watch the froth rise like washing up liquid in a dishwasher:

 

http://www.ehattons.....aspx?sid=32175

 

N

 

p.s. if you want a good laugh, put a good squeeze of fairy liquid into an egg cup and put it in the dishwasher on a normal cycle. When finished you open the door to a wall of foam! However be aware that the doghouse can be cold at night!

 

You had me there Neal.I thought you meant the Great Western livery one.

[Barry Ten]

Working from the tender front either side, get a flat fine bladed screwdriver tip in under the flange of the plug to ease it up a little.

 

This worked, thanks!

[Forester]

Really tempted to make new post with the title 'Great Western Castle Arrives at last' and watch the froth rise like washing up liquid in a dishwasher:

 

http://www.ehattons.....aspx?sid=32175

 

 

Good thing I don't own a model shop. I'd be ordering all the wrong stock.

 

I'd have thought a Limited Edition run of 1000 of a Castle named "Great Western" would have sold out so fast it would never have hit the shops! Especially as Hattons have had it available on pre-order at £96 for months. Yet "Swindon" at £130 seems to be out-selling it.

 

Collectors are a mystery to me!

 

 

(Or should that be: GWR fans are a mystery to me?)

[coachmann]

Throw in weathering from a hundred runs, indifferent cleaning and perhaps even heating of the paint and whilst there is I dont doubt an official colour, I wouldnt be surprised to see a castle run in nearly every shade from greeny blue to black.

You have to START with the correct colour. What you do with it afterwards comes under the heading of 'weathering'.

 

Don't forget the GWR green that was applied with far too much thinners to make the paint go further looked fine on the day the paint was applied. It went khaki or blackened while in traffic. A modeller replicating this would not pour black or khaki into his tin of GWR green ..... would he?

 

At this distance in time, we have to start somewhere. It seems to me the best starting point is either to obtain paint from the manufacturers who supplied the Big Four (Williamson or Masons), assuming they still have the recipe, but easier still for modellers is the range of Precision Paints GLOSS colours.

[robertcwp]

I now have my 7037 Swindon. I didn't buy it because of the collector aspect, I bought it because it is a late crest, Collett tender, single chimney Castle. It runs very well too.

 

Interesting point about the screws on the transit brackets. I have not put mine back in on any of my Hornby locos, remembering the HST problem if you did so.

 

I also agree that the plug is a pain - some kind of flange would help in getting a grip on it.

 

Greens are a problem. It may be my eyes or the light in the railway room but I can't see much difference between Bachmann and Hornby greens, though Bachmann's possibly has slightly more depth of colour.

[The Stationmaster]

I now have my 7037 Swindon. I didn't buy it because of the collector aspect, I bought it because it is a late crest, Collett tender, single chimney Castle.

 

 

Me too - that is my favourite combination on a 'Castle'. I much prefer the late crest and I got fed up with the sight of a Hawksworth tender behind a 'Castle' when we had one down our branch every week night in a year or more

[brushman47544]

I now have my 7037 Swindon. I didn't buy it because of the collector aspect, I bought it because it is a late crest, Collett tender, single chimney Castle.

 

Me too...too. And very fine it looks. To my admittedly inexperienced eye, the Hornby green does not look too far off and is certainly acceptable. A slightly more gloss finish, rather than the very dull matt Hornby uses, might improve the appearance however.

 

Someone on this thread commented that the boiler band lining appeared to be a different colour to the lining on the tender and cab sides. I thought so too to start with, but now I'm convinced it's the same red/brown colour - it just looks darker on the tender/cab because of the black lining next to it.

[stuart galbraith]

You have to START with the correct colour. What you do with it afterwards comes under the heading of 'weathering'.

 

Don't forget the GWR green that was applied with far too much thinners to make the paint go further looked fine on the day the paint was applied. It went khaki or blackened while in traffic. A modeller replicating this would not pour black or khaki into his tin of GWR green ..... would he?

 

At this distance in time, we have to start somewhere. It seems to me the best starting point is either to obtain paint from the manufacturers who supplied the Big Four (Williamson or Masons), assuming they still have the recipe, but easier still for modellers is the range of Precision Paints GLOSS colours.

 

I accept its very USEFUL to start with a colour that is shade accurate. Where I disagree is whether its is the final decider of whether a model is really accurate or not since in the 50s there could have been so many variables in the way it was applied. (as suggested by the way it looked in comparison on Diesels and Steamers) Swindon funnily enough is exactly the same shade of green as Beverston castle. Its just where Swindon has a slight glossy sheen to it, it looks more

accurate than Beverston Castle. The latter is still the pride of the collection though.

Its also interesting to compare Swindon to a Class 5 in BR green from Bachmann (73068) and it looks almost the same shade. Maybe the problem as other have suggested here is how the paint is actually applied to the model, not that the actual shade is wrong.

 

Does anyone know of a good way of taking the slight matt off the paint, without eroding all the decals and details? T cut sounds a little extreme, but Id give it a try to get 5068 up to 7037 standard.

 

I must admit I said to the chap at steam I prefered the Hawksworth tender, but It has to be said, the combination of late embalem and old tender does look very good on the eye. There is a photograph I have in a book of Pendennis Castle in the same configuration, fully bulled up for one of the late BR runs and it looks fantastic.

[coachmann]

Even when the same paint was used on steam and diesel locos, the freshly applied paint simply looked darker on diesels because of the expance of unlined area. Red Warships always looked drab compared with a lined out Duchess for instance. Class 40s looked as if they had been painted in a green bought in by English Electric!

 

The black splashers tops have to be painted green on every Hornby and Bachmann BR green loco. I used Railmatch 300 BR Loco Green with a smidgen of black added on the Bachmann 'Jubilee' and 'Patriot', but the paint had to be lightened to match Hornbys green. It is simply too light.

[7013]

I was just looking at the Hornby ad. for GWR 175. Have they announced anywhere they are going to produce 7007 'Great Western'? The model shown although paint shopped would be wrong for7007. Firstly it has cutaway inside cylinder covers whereas the prototype were squared from built, also the GWR emblem is missing on the splasher and the nameplate is wrong as it should have the small subplate which reads 'castle class.' It is probably just an advertising picture, albeit a misleading one.

 

 

Edit. I see that it is coming out as a Ltd. Edn. I hope Hornby correct all these faults as they are pretty glaring.

[The Stationmaster]

I was just looking at the Hornby ad. for GWR 175. Have they announced anywhere they are going to produce 7007 'Great Western'? The model shown although paint shopped would be wrong for7007. Firstly it has cutaway inside cylinder covers whereas the prototype were squared from built, also the GWR emblem is missing on the splasher and the nameplate is wrong as it should have the small subplate which reads 'castle class.' It is probably just an advertising picture, albeit a misleading one.

 

 

Edit. I see that it is coming out as a Ltd. Edn. I hope Hornby correct all these faults as they are pretty glaring.

If you follow the link above to the Hatton's site you will see that the centre cylinder cover is exactly correct for that batch - even to the correct piece on the front lip of the treadplate below the smokebox and a representation of the oiling point immediately below that. The nameplate is also correct.

 

Incorrect detail in catalogue and promotional photos of the 'Castles' have been rather misleading (see my earlier comment about the first promo pic of 7037) but when they've finally emerged the details have usually turned out to be right for a specific date in the loco's history (albeit sometimes the wrong date as far as I'm concerned ).

 

Hornby have clearly gone to a lot of trouble to try to get individual details right so Mr Kohler's reassurance when I asked him last year at swindon about their ability to do this has indeed turned out to be pretty much on teh mark in my view.

[westerner]

I'm always vaguely amused when I see a thread which is about the correct shade of colour.

 

Several things strike me;

 

1. Perception of colour is a uniquely personal thing.

 

2. The way colour was mixed and applied could vary.

 

3. We are often comparing with old colour photos where the different firms film stocks would give a different look even if taken at exactly the same time from the same place.

 

4. The amount of "intraffic-ness" will produce different shades

 

5. Colour is affect by scale: i.e. seeing a full size engine therefore looking at several square foot boiler is completely different to looking at a couple of square inches of a model

 

By the way one way of getting that oily but cleaned sheen is to use (sparingly) Johnson,s Klear, almost dry brushed on.

[brushman47544]

Incorrect detail in catalogue and promotional photos of the 'Castles' have been rather misleading (see my earlier comment about the first promo pic of 7037) but when they've finally emerged the details have usually turned out to be right for a specific date in the loco's history (albeit sometimes the wrong date as far as I'm concerned ).

 

Hornby have clearly gone to a lot of trouble to try to get individual details right so Mr Kohler's reassurance when I asked him last year at swindon about their ability to do this has indeed turned out to be pretty much on teh mark in my view.[/i]

I agree and I'm very happy with my Swindon model. However, I do wish the manufacturers wouldn't paintshop the models in their catalogues and advertising where they know clearly visible detail changes are to be made. I will not pre-order in such cases in case they get it wrong. In some cases, particularly in the rest of Europe, manufacturers wait for sufficient pre-orders from traders to produce a model. The same applies to weathering - compare the original advertising picture of Bachmann's 08173 (black/oily weathering) with the final orange weathered production model. Please manufacturers can we see what we will get.

 

I'm always vaguely amused when I see a thread which is about the correct shade of colour.

 

Several things strike me;

 

1. Perception of colour is a uniquely personal thing.

 

2. The way colour was mixed and applied could vary.

 

3. We are often comparing with old colour photos where the different firms film stocks would give a different look even if taken at exactly the same time from the same place.

 

4. The amount of "intraffic-ness" will produce different shades

 

5. Colour is affect by scale: i.e. seeing a full size engine therefore looking at several square foot boiler is completely different to looking at a couple of square inches of a model

 

By the way one way of getting that oily but cleaned sheen is to use (sparingly) Johnson,s Klear, almost dry brushed on.

And if I close each eye in turn in bright sunlight I see slightly different colours because one eye is slightly more sensitive to light than the other. But using one or both eyes, I'm still happy that Hornby's green for the Castles is close enough for me.

[7013]

Thanks Stationmaster, to quote that oft used phrase 'Oh Sam what a beauty' I wonder if they will be available at GWR 175 at the Steam Museum Swindon on the 11th? One can only hope.

[stuart galbraith]

I'm always vaguely amused when I see a thread which is about the correct shade of colour.

 

Several things strike me;

 

1. Perception of colour is a uniquely personal thing.

 

2. The way colour was mixed and applied could vary.

 

3. We are often comparing with old colour photos where the different firms film stocks would give a different look even if taken at exactly the same time from the same place.

 

4. The amount of "intraffic-ness" will produce different shades

 

5. Colour is affect by scale: i.e. seeing a full size engine therefore looking at several square foot boiler is completely different to looking at a couple of square inches of a model

 

By the way one way of getting that oily but cleaned sheen is to use (sparingly) Johnson,s Klear, almost dry brushed on.

 

Thanks, I may give that a try. I might try it on my 26 year old Dapol County first though....

[7013]

Converting Ince to Bristol in her final state with Metcalfe Davis lubricator reservoir

[coachmann]

I'm always vaguely amused when I see a thread which is about the correct shade of colour.

The blind leading the blind isn't all that amusing.....

[The Stationmaster]

Thanks Stationmaster, to quote that oft used phrase 'Oh Sam what a beauty' I wonder if they will be available at GWR 175 at the Steam Museum Swindon on the 11th? One can only hope.

 

Simple answer to that one - contact a trader who will be present at'Steam' on the 11th and ask them to bring one along and reserve it for you . In order to avoid the rush I pre-booked mine today to be collected from Kernow at their show on the 4th. They have done this for me in the past and it's worked very successfully, and you save the postage costs if you are going to the show/pick-up point/whatever anyway.

[7013]

Regarding paint, I had to do a bit of retouching on my Castle conversion, I tried the Humbrol 'Rail Colour' BR/WR green which is a pretty good match. It dries a bit matt compared with the sheen of the Hornby paint but a fine coat of Johnson Klear has brought up the sheen. I have only used the retouches on v.small areas though so I do not know how the paint would look on a larger area.

[stuart galbraith]

7013, that does look very good indeed. Though perhaps least said the better about the neatnest of the original BR conversion!

[robertcwp]

I compared my Ince Castle and Swindon today. Though the colour seems to be the same, Swindon has more of shine to it and Ince Castle looks a bit dull in comparison. Both run fautlessly.

[7013]

I agree Stuart the Metcalfe & Davis lubricator reservoir did nothing for the appearance of the Castle but I wanted to capture Bristol castle in her final guise.

[stuart galbraith]

Would I be right in assuming this was the original Windsor Castle, or is that before they swapped plates?

[The Stationmaster]

Would I be right in assuming this was the original Windsor Castle, or is that before they swapped plates?

 

 

7013 ex 4082 was rebuilt with new inside cylinders and front end frames plus a double chimney in 1958. But I don't know if the Davies & Metcalfe lubricator and its oil resevoir were added at that time although I presume so.

[7013]

Yes the Davies Metcalffe lubricator and reservoir were added May 1958.