Paul's workbench

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notascoobie
GCR O4 2-8-0 'ROD'
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Location: S Yorkshire

Re: Paul's workbench

Post by notascoobie »

Hi Paul,

Nice work, each conversion fresh improvements but the standard you've achieved is excellent.

I'd like to know more about your teak finish any chance of a description of your technique please. Earlier on you said "a picture paints a thousand words so I'll let them do the talking" - how about you using some words to do the talking about teaking? :D

Regards,

Vernon
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nzpaul
LNER Thompson B1 4-6-0 'Antelope'
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Location: New Zealand

Re: Paul's workbench

Post by nzpaul »

Hi Benji
The chassis sides are painted with Humbrol 13 acrylic (rust) followed by a satin varnish. I'm unsure of how close to the proper colour this is but as I've suggested before I'm not really going for all out authenticity, meerly an illusion of a scale model, so I use what I have available and avoid spending much on the conversions/redecoration.

Vernon, Teak method is fairly simple. Firstly I airbrush the sides and ends with Railmatch teak, only one coat as a perfect finish isn't really required. Second step is to wash over with a cheap brown poster paint, also a cheap brush . The poster paint combined with cheap brush creates a rough broken finish and the brush marks remain in the paint when dried. You could also go over again with a watery yellow poster paint (the Comp has the yellow, Brake & Restaurant don't, not much difference) At this stage the finish doesn't really look good but next comes the first coat of gloss varnish, I use a water based varnish through the airbrush again which dictates it being pretty watery. Transfers next. Still at this stage the finish will look unconvincing but after two more coats of varnish the finish gains some depth and the thing starts to look like wood. It's not perfect but it looks nice and does mean the old coaches blend in better along side new models.

Cheers for now
Paul
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notascoobie
GCR O4 2-8-0 'ROD'
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Re: Paul's workbench

Post by notascoobie »

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the explanation, it sounds a little bizarre but the results speak for themselves. There are many different methods proposed but few give a convincing result. It's probably a lot to do with the technique as the materials. Congratulations.

Regards,

Vernon
B3nj1_p
LNER J94 0-6-0ST Austerity
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Re: Paul's workbench

Post by B3nj1_p »

Hi Paul

Thanks for the info, mine are far to light at the moment and yours look very close to the Hornby finish. Your coaches are fantastic altogether :)

Kind regards
Benji
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nzpaul
LNER Thompson B1 4-6-0 'Antelope'
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Re: Paul's workbench

Post by nzpaul »

Hi Guys
Thanks for the kind words. I suppose it does sound a bit weird as I've pretty much sugested that you need to do a bad paint job to achieve this result, but in a way that kind of sums it up. Before stumbling across the poster paint method I'd tried using Humbrol and Precision browns of various shades, but high quality paints have a tendancy to cover too well and also smooth off as they dry. If I hadn't read Steve Barnfield's book I would have given up after seeing the two tone brown in the raw but, as he says, the varnish coats create the effect. I've found that the third coat of varnish is when it really starts to look ok, but because I use the airbrush the coats are really thin so maybe only two needed if you use a brush. The varnish is called Estapol, it's a house decorating product and it's supposed to be clear but I'm pretty sure it darkens a tad when dry. The technique was found more by accident than good planning or artiness so I can't claim ownership of it.
I'm starting on the 1st and 3rd class corridor coaches soon so I'll take some photo's of the pre-varnish stage just to show that there's no black art involved.

Cheers
Paul
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nzpaul
LNER Thompson B1 4-6-0 'Antelope'
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Re: Paul's workbench

Post by nzpaul »

Hi All
I've made a start on the corridor 1st & 3rd coaches over the weekend. I thought I might share the complete build this time, so here's some photo's of the cut out parts. It took a bit of head scratching to find the ideal cut lines and most likely those more clever than me will probably see a simpler solution. I have these parts fitted in now and filled and sanded ready for the primer. I'll add more photo's after the first coat of paint. The chassis' for these will be the same as the Comp/brake.
Cheers
Paul
Attachments
1st_1.jpg
3rd_1.jpg
B3nj1_p
LNER J94 0-6-0ST Austerity
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Re: Paul's workbench

Post by B3nj1_p »

Quick question, how do you remove the glazing from the bodyshell? I've tried with mine but it seems like a lot of force is required and I'm a bit nervous of breaking it :oops:

Many thanks
Benji
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Atlantic 3279
LNER A4 4-6-2 'Streak'
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Re: Paul's workbench

Post by Atlantic 3279 »

nzpaul wrote:It took a bit of head scratching to find the ideal cut lines
If you cut the coach roof in half mid-way along the coach and extend it (by about 12mm if I remember correctly) you can then get the full number of windows and doors into each side. It's easiest in the end to do this by using one "sacrificial" coach as a donor for pieces of roof etc, and to work on sometimes a couple of coaches at once so that you can swap strips of sides between the two. I did this on several old type Hornby Gresleys and produced correctly arranged a full first, two or three full thirds, a composite with coupe (half) compartment, and a short GE section composite with coupe. I even went to the trouble of turning the so called brake compo into a full length coach witn a long, largely scratchbuilt, brake section to the sides.
You have to extend the underframe by a matching amount of course, but that's not hard and it gives you the chance to change the trussing, battery boxes, dynamos and brake gear to something truly LNER too.
B3nj1_p wrote:how do you remove the glazing from the bodyshell?
Unless Hornby have started to glue it in I'm not sure why you are having a problem. All my coaches had it sitting loose inside the bodyshell, just clipped down at a few points into sockets in the floor. Pinch the sides in a little and pull and it ought to lift out easily.
Most subjects, models and techniques covered in this thread are now listed in various categories on page1

Dec. 2018: Almost all images that disappeared from my own thread following loss of free remote hosting are now restored.
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nzpaul
LNER Thompson B1 4-6-0 'Antelope'
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Re: Paul's workbench

Post by nzpaul »

Hi Benji
Timely question that, as up until these two, I had only used old Margate made coaches. The one that forms the bulk of the 1st is a newer China made product and the glazing was glued in. I used an average side screwdriver (5mm blade or so) and gently eased it under the glued parts. The glue didn't seem that strong but still, care is needed not to distort or break anything, bit of a pain really when the old ones effectively fell to bits.

Graeme, I originally contemplated the cutting in half along the roof thing but I chickened out when I found the corridor side windows were going to cause all sorts of issues that I didn't feel like dealing with. So, I'll end up with a 6 compartment 1st with either an extended compartment or wheelchair access toilet at one end and a 7 compartment 3rd with a spare door to a windowless coupe compartment or cupboard of some description. I feel a bit compelled to stick to the original chassis length now, at least for this batch of coaches, I think I'd cry if i chopped up the Restaurant again. The main goal at the moment is to make a 7 or 8 coach train that looks ok. After this lot I have some Kirk coaches to have a go at, hopefully the Hornby butcher jobs are good practice for them.

Cheers
Paul
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nzpaul
LNER Thompson B1 4-6-0 'Antelope'
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Location: New Zealand

Re: Paul's workbench

Post by nzpaul »

As promised, my teak finish from the start. I didn't think there was much to see in the primer stage so here's the first part of the paint job proper. Airbrushed Railmatch Teak & the roof in Humbroll 22 white, slightly tinted with a bit of brown to make it a bit cream coloured. The airbrush I use is one of the cheap double action internal mix type that's available virtually anywhere ( on this side of the world available from supercheap auto) and looks identical to the one that Tim Shackleton rubbishes in this month's Hornby Magazine. The hardest part of all this is getting a handle on the airbrush, which for me required a fair bit of experimenting with thinning the paints correctly and I ended up using a product called Fuelite (Barbeque accelerator) it's basically petrol without all the aromatics and colouring stuff and works really well as thinners. Anyway this is the primary colours.

Cheers
Paul
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Full 1st_1.jpg
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nzpaul
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Re: Paul's workbench

Post by nzpaul »

ok, next stage is the poster paint graining effect. I hope you can see from the photo's that the effect is not particularly well established yet and it looks like a patchy paint job. I've been a bit more generous with the yellow for these coaches so will be interesting to see how that turns out under the varnish. I've put the poster paints in with one photo just to show what I use, these ones are made in NZ but I'm sure that it's pretty much the same everywhere.

Cheers
Paul
Attachments
Full 1st_2.jpg
Full 3rd_1.jpg
jwealleans
LNER A4 4-6-2 'Streak'
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Re: Paul's workbench

Post by jwealleans »

Hi Paul,

I'm intrigued that you airbrush the base coat. Most people I know who do teak brush every layer as the brush strokes help the eventual grain effect. Watching with interest.
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nzpaul
LNER Thompson B1 4-6-0 'Antelope'
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Re: Paul's workbench

Post by nzpaul »

Hi again
The next step is lining and the first coat of varnish. The lining is done with the bow pen in the second photo. Here in NZ bow pens occur with the same frequency as rocking horse doodoo and my pen started life as a bow compass, I've simply glued the bow part into an old ballpoint pen. it doesn't posses any of the desireble traits such as long blades but after a bit of honing with some 1200g wet n dry it works ok.
The first coat of varnish doesn't improve the teak effect much, it seals the poster paint (not waterproof apparantly) and gives a slightly glossy surface for the transfers.
I use my airbrush as much as I can if for no better reason than to get better at using it, I've also found that if the needle is wound well back it can move a lot of paint fairly quickly so the job gets done faster.
Attachments
Full 1st_3.jpg
Full 1st_4.jpg
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nzpaul
LNER Thompson B1 4-6-0 'Antelope'
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Re: Paul's workbench

Post by nzpaul »

I've taken a break from the coaches for a while and I've been spending my modelling time restoring a small Z gauge layout that I bought from a friend and working on a N scale layout I started quite a while ago.
The N scale layout is pramarily for running a small collection of American outline models I have, but I couldn't resist getting a Dapol "Papyrus" just for fun. Sadly is contrast to the glowing reports in the magazines my A3 was not good runner, it suffered from what turned out to be a very noisey motor, more megaphone than super creep (what were they thinking...one definition of creep=weird bloke who smells funny). Anyway, rather than return it to whence it came, which means sending back half way around the world, I decided to see if one of the motors I had in the parts box could be used to improve the running. As it turns out a Hanazono 1024 has virtually identical dimensions to the Dapol motor excepting it's length. As I don't intend to use DCC for the N gauge layout, I figured that I had nothing to loose by gutting the tender out and installing the larger motor. I cut the rear end off the motor mount and opened the front hole out to accept the 1024 boss and by some miracle the solder tabs for the motor ended up perfectly positioned to attach to the pick up tabs of the chassis. The repower is completely effective, the A3 now performs as well as it looks and it's more powerful, quieter, runs cooler, draws less current. I suspect the original motor may have been a rogue and this isn't really the proper way to deal with a near new model but it may be useful to someone. As the picture shows this is about as straight forward a conversion as you could hope for.

Cheers
Paul
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Dapol_1.jpg
Atso
LNER A3 4-6-2
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Location: Hertfordshire

Re: Paul's workbench

Post by Atso »

Hi Paul,

That is really useful information on the Dapol A3, thank you. I've not had any running problems due to the motor. However, I have the valve gear disintegrate on one of mine which tore the plastic bracket off of the running plate making things close to impossible to repair... Nice thing is that this has solved the problem of what my next donor chassis will be...
Steve
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