Squirrel Rail

and a bit of gronk action

Couple of BR Blue ones from the archives - sorry for the back drop

Not much going on over on the workbench so one from the Squirrel Archives:

Just saw Jacks post and the paint is a mare to match - either Precision or Railmatch. I think I used a bit of good old humbrol 113 rust to dull my last EWS job and at least it’s in an area where a bit of weathering is appropriate! Good luck and look forward to seeing it progress. Cheers Jerry

I find the easiest way to paint the wheels without removing the side frames is to use a 9V battery to move them round as I'm spraying. Likewise the same to clean off any overspray with thinners. Doesn't always work with DCC locos but I find the the bogie tower tops on Bachmann 47s are often a bit "wobbly" to say the least and levering off the frame would worry me that it would exacerbate the problem.

Hi Rob, yep it is to show tyre creep, also noticed on race cars and aircraft wheels too, Cheers Jerry

Another from the Squirrel Archives - de-branded Virgin Thunderbird looking a bit neglected no branding and no nameplates!

1028 awaits repair after being whacked!

Hi - Just reading your thread and great seeing the layout coming to life. I find the easiest and safest way to attach plates is with PVA - I use Formula 560 canopy glue. Plates can be moved around whilst it sets, excess cleaned off with water or a cocktail stick when dry and if you want to remove the plates they come off with a little persuasion and no damage. look forward to seeing it develop Cheers Jerry

Class 66 597 Viridor. Following on from the previous pair the green theme continues. This is a re work of 66952 into 597. The finished loco will be fairly heavily weathered but before all the fun there's quite a bit of prep. First to go are the numbers and the 40th anniversary logos. Quite a few other little jobs to do too, front valance and detail pack to fit, replace the missing brake gear off one bogie, the broken lamp bracket and one of the sandboxes that was on holiday in the box. The cab front handrails will get a deeper coat of yellow as the plastic looks just that - plastic. The yellow axle boxes and whitewall tyres also need to go..... Much better without the bling, have also picked out the hand rails above the cab steps in white which are always black on Bachmann 66's. Next step is to change the terracotta exhaust to a better base colour before the weathering. Bachmann have done a number of variations on the silencer and unfortunately they are all a bit, er, crap. Here it is masked out ready for some base colour As this is going to be pretty weathered I just want a coat of rusty (ish) steel, humbrol metal coat and rust mixed and brush painted - I have added some variations in the colours to get a bit of life into the base coat So here's the end of today's efforts - all ready for a numbering session and naming.

After a weekend of domestic refurbishment just managed to put the finishing touches to the thumper and the rail bus. First up adding brake dust to the bogies and a bit of grime... Followed by buffer grease and the rubbing plate, before... and much better after.... Bit more work on the roof and the side grills.... Pretty happy with all of that - wanted a very lightly weathered Thumper and think I've just about cracked it. As usual I will leave it a couple of days then have another look but for now that's it. Quick couple of 3/4 shots of the pair of them to close. Cheers Jerry Still don't like that bloody handrail

Back on these two tonight. Bit of weathering to go over the replacement horn on the Thumper and then start to get the base weathering on the underframes on both of them. First up is the rail bus, trying to keep the sides fairly clean - I'm not convinced about Heljan's banana handrail ( it's the same on the other side Front of the bus will be cleaned back but not until the paint has had a time to dry On to the Thumper, roof first around the replacement horn and then some more weathering around the exhaust and fan. Underframes next and here's both sides, mix of frame dirt and brake dust and some shadowing with dirty black around the fuel tanks and axle boxes. Time to leave alone to harden off. Must sort those grills out - too clean!...and the other side. That's it for tonight.

Hi Will, just seen your thread, lovely job on the 37 and the 56 - look forward to seeing them finished.

As a follow up to these here's a couple more 50's that I have done: 50001 was a renumber,fade and weather, love good old BR blue! 50031 was a weathering job 50046 was a complete respray from an NSE machine, pretty much same as the previous post apart from the different roof and quite a lot of fading! Last up 042, another respray and quite battered, don't know why but only had the one pic!! Won't be adding to this post as will be back on my Squirrel Rail workbench thread but hope you like them, Cheers Jerry

Replacement horns arrived today from Roxey Mouldings, really pleased with them and great service As they are already drilled easy to find a suitable wire support and fit - debating if I should change both? I've given the replacement a quick coat of paint and will let it dry overnight before deciding whether to swap the other before carrying back on with the weathering!

Back on the Thumper and the rail bus today. Waiting for a replacement horn on the thumper but can easily blend it in so decided to crack on. First up was a wash to tone down the acres of grey plastic with some localised washes to highlight detail. Small wash around the lamp irons to lift the detail and here's the two roofs Likewise the rail bus gets a similar treatment before heading to the paint stand Airbrush commences, roof dirt slightly darkened is applied with heavier build up around the thumper exhaust The mix is then darkened again and the process repeated. That's enough on those for the time being so leave them to dry and carry on another time

Not much to add to yesterday’s efforts apart from handrails repainted fro orange to green and the triangle added to the front

Latest additions to the workbench are a Kernow Thumper and Heljan railbus. The thumper is to lose its orange V and gain small yellow warning panels and then both of them are due for weathering: First job is to lose that V - here it is slowly disappearing.... With that out the way the masking was up next. I could have saved myself a lot of work as I removed all the pipework on one end of the set before remembering that the yellow panel sits inside it all - Doh!! Here it is masked up ready, maskol prevents any creep of overspray Tamiya white fine surface primer provides a good base for the yellow, although more expensive its much smoother than the pigment in the Halfords cans as its designed for modelling, Followed by Phoenix paints WP Yellow As soon as I've cleaned up the airbrush I take off the masking Not looking too bad - nice crisp lines although I have cocked up one of the corners as a bit of maskol has given me a radius on one side and not the other. Now is not the time to tinker but to let the paint harden off for a few days and resolve it then. The handrails will be painted into green and then weathering will start to tone down the fresh appearance and blend it all together. I will post some more pics when I get back on to it.

That damn orange line is a PITA and so often I see models with dodgy cant rails, (including on my own) with decal stripes over panel lines and door shuts or even extending over the roof ends or where it looks like a dogs hind leg was used as a straight edge. I have tried various methods with some success and some failures. I recently posted some pics of some 50 resprays where I did the cant rails with a bow pen as they would be weathered quite heavily but on this 37057 I wanted a fairly pristine finish. I was hoping to post this on my workbench thread but couldn't work out how ( any suggestions appreciated - as long as it doesn't involve it copying all the previous night pictures again!). Thought the following pics may be of use to fellow sufferers with the CAN'T rail problem! I started off with the windscreen surrounds, couple of problems here as on the real loco the stripe under the windscreen seems to meet the one coming down at a point. Following the lines on the mode I ended up with a squarer version but didn't have a lot of choice. I used Fox orange stripe for the cant rails, all other numbers courtesy of Railtec. The Fox stripes can take a lot of softening with Microsol and micro set to get them to adhere. Here I have used short strips of decal to get them into the edges round the door and the aforementioned nose and gutter Here it is trimmed, don't like the flat bottom under the window frame but not much option due to the shape.. I repeated the process of little strips to get the sections across the roof grills and then laid a long strip of decal to join up with the line round the cab Any excess is cut with a scalpel blade when it has dried. Next up were the numbers, data panels and OHLE flashes all included on the Railtec sheet I managed to alter that cab end junction to get a better point on the line but the nodel varies from end to end as when you follow the curves it meets in a different place - nope I haven't figured that out either! Still managed to get a slightly wonky line in the long section of decal somehow... Anyway here's the finished article with a light weathering applied to finish it off.

General view of the roofs, all slightly different for a bit of variety The Hornby 87 is a really good looking loco and a bit of weathering really makes a difference Love the nameplate and crest, these were from Fox Thane of Fife with its tatty virgin stripes 014 with its ding in the front 87025 with its Virgin style plates, again from Fox 87004 has it's number higher than on the other locos and one of the few to keep a red plate and last up 005 So that's that for the time being.

Thanks for the welcome, in slowly working out how to post stuff so will eventually get the hang of it!

Tonight I'm back on the 87s, I had started these as a blog but didn't realise I couldn't keep it in one thread - my mistake new to RM web Anyhow, my recent post in here on the 50 resprays went down fairly well so here are the 87s. The project is to renumber and rename 4 of the new Hornby 87s. These are to work push pull sets so are being dual identitied as they will only have one side on to the viewer so this explains more than 4 numbers. Here's 87011 with its new City of Wolverhampton plates. It has had roof weathering and fading and weathering to the bodysides so next up are the bogies and underframes. First few passes of frame dirt to start to build up some muck. I had forgotten when looking at pictures how dirty these actually got! Here's another this time Thane of Fife. Photo's showed this had quite a few scuffs out the Virgin stripes so these have been replicated and the frame dirt applied. Last up tonight is 87014. This had quite a lot of damage in the reference pics, a couple of lumps out of it's nose down to the primer and likewise two big areas under the nameplate. It was also absolutely minging and had lots of dirt over the bodysides:- Here's the ding on the front: and here's the nameplate area BTW I will clean that crap off the cab window!! That's all for tonight . Cheers Jerry

I did the cant rail with a bow pen and a steel ruler along the sides and then free hand round the cabs. On a long stretch it’s easier to get a straight line than with decals!

Thanks, I was pretty pleased with them!

Thanks Rob