1ngram

My latest GNSR loco, a Class K No. 46 is now finished and I would like to line it in the WW1 GNSR livery - a simple red and yellow lines on the black (I can manage the lettering myself) but age and poor eyesight preclude me even thinking of doing this myself. Is there anyone here in Scotland who offers this service?

Given its the centenary of the start of WW1 and by the summer there will be five (count 'em) RTR locos in 00 available which ran on the R.O.D. my mind has turned to a small layout-ette based on one of the outstanding photos in William Aves book on the R.O.D. I know that apart from the French wagons and coaches used there were thousands, of wagons especially, built in Britiain and taken across to France, many of which, like the locos, later returned to this country and spent many useful years with various companies. But which? And which are currently available in rtr or kit form from which manufacturer? As well as the well known rectanks and warflats there were many, many humble open coal wagons and vans carrying explosives and the myriad other supplies shipped across the channel. What is available? Finally will any of the available locos, do you think, see a R.O.D. livery on them in the next few years? And will anyone produce R.O.D. transfers?

Yes indeed I put the inks on top of the painted areas, and on all of the area. The inks fall into the crevices etc and make them darker. Obviously you can vary how much ink you use.

Having painted literally thousands of wargames figures about this scale over the years can I recommend the following 1. Glue the figures to a small card base using Copydex oor some other easily peelable glue 2. Once dry spray paint with Halfords Grey Primer. Lay the figures down and spray each side separately to ensure every part is covered by a thin layer. This is an excellent base for acrylics and dries in minutes. If you don't put an undercoat on first then you may well end up putting layer after layer of topcoat on to get the saturation you want and thus end up obscuring the detail. 3. Put your colours on. I always start with the flesh. 4. Once all the colours are on make a very thin wash of black - I use the black concentrate, well diluted, from Geoscenics. Using a very small brush line all the separations between the colours. This will considerably sharpen up the painting and provide shadows. 5. Go over all the colours again to narrow the black lines down. 6. I don't bother at this scale with overlays of highlighting etc. But I strongly recommend using Games Workshop acrylic inks. Red, Green, Blue etc can all go on top of their own colours but the Sepia looks excellent on yellows and browns while the Earthshade adds considerably to all the darker colours like brown even black. Anything metal should have black ink (now called Nuln, I think) on it and flesh should be inked last of all with one of their flesh coloured inks. My own favourite is Ogryn Flesh which gives an outdoors look but your ladies may require something lighter. 7. Back into the spray box (a paper box lid outside in my case) for both sides again to get a blast of good quality varnish. My preference is for Humbrol matt. Finally can I ask how tall these figures are?

Well, I model pre grouping but at the very other end of the country. I model the Great North of Scotland Railway, WW1 era - and in H0 not 00. That means mainly scratch and kit built locos plus a few conversions from 00, kit built 6-wheel coaches from Worsley and making wagons and vans from 3D printing and resin. But its fun! My own bete noir is the fixation on the era when everything was dirty and rusty - 50s/60s. In the pre grouping era, even during the war, railway companies took pride in their locos and coaches and kept them reasonably clean and regularly repainted. A little weathering is fine, especially if you are depicting a fish train steaming through the morning haar on the Buchan coast line, but depicting every loco rusting away to scrap isn't my idea of fun.

Here is my S Class GNSR 4-4-0 in H0 scale. Built by George Mitcheson from Worsley Works brass etch body and lots of scratchbuilt bits and pieces

Sorry I forgot to point you to here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/56339-gnsr-outside-framed-wagons/ where there is a photo of the flatpacks made up into complete models.

We started off with a full model, four sides, roof and all but no floor and only went to a flatpack because we couldn't get an acceptable model - I've a plastic butter container full of rejected models in both H0 and 00. If you can find a printer who can guarantee the quality you want on all four faces go for it but the "safe" option is to go flatpack because there is you 'only' need one face to come out right. Plus a one guy operation seems to take more care than a big firm like Shapeways where the guys on the machine seemed to have no contact with the PR etc people and just would stick it on willy nilly. Up to recently Shapeways would give you a voucher if the print "failed" so you could ask them to try again for free, but I hear they no longer do this.

" if doing a simple van, would a separate set of essentially-flat four sides/ends and roof be better (in terms of surface texture quality) than an integrated whole?" This is what we did with our GNSR externally framed kit but Shapeways still couldn't get it to come out at an acceptable level of detail. We went to CWR and you can see a raw primered only (no sanding down or touching up) version of our kit on this thread from post No.16 onwards: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/56296-gnsr-4mm-kits-any-available/

We tried for over six months and several revisions of the CAD plus reprintings by Shapeways and finally gave up on them when they admitted (at last) they just could not get the quality we wanted on all faces of the model. We went to CWRailways who within two days had produced a far better product. I would advise you to contact them. You can see from their webpage the quality of the locos they are producing for themselves at present. http://www.chrisjward.co.uk/index.html

For GNSR two colour coaches I have found Daewoo Ruby Red and Peugeot Antelope Beige just about as good as you can get. Polly Paints PRR Tuscan ( though matt) is a perfect touch up colour for the above red. If Daewoo are going to disappear I had better buy as many tins as I can find as I have another 5 coaches to do.