teaky wrote:Thanks for the cross-reference to Mick's thread (one of my favourites). I've refreshed my memory but Mick built some different kits with brass sides that did not have the challenging masking requirements of the one piece mouldings.
Looking at your progress so far it appears that the secret is to take your time and invest in a masking tape company! You seem to be achieving a very good finish with nice crisp lines between the colours.
There should be my Mailcoach based Tourist set somewhere on here about 5 years ago at a guess .
Personally I wouldnt ever touch a Mailcoach version of these type of Coaches ever again!! Poor quality throughout !! from the actual mouldings, fit of parts in particular roofs ,they have windows having bubbles and other defects in all the sides I had.
The Brass etched version I have built were from a chap trading as Bleathwood Models as far as I know he never did any other sets. Marc Models do or did Silver Jubilee sets
Hi All
I've tried the bow pen out and lined a couple of coaches, the silver paint (Humbrol 11) is not best friends with the bow pen. The paint refuses to flow evenly from the pen, it does have a different, more oily texture to other colours, whatever's in it makes it more sticky I think, anyway with a bit of perseverance I managed to get an acceptable result, it will require some tidying up but the method works.
I'm not sure I'd want to tackle these again either, as Mick says, nothing fits properly and painting with the glass in the windows is a real pain.
Cheers
Paul
Following Mick's response above, I looked at the Marc Models Silver Jubilee set. They're £50 each, so not cheap but not excessive either. I didn't delve deeply but there was no mention of whether this included wheels etc. However, the total cost of a full set is probably not much more than a Mailcoach set (assuming one can be found) with better bogies.
One thing that was interesting was that they come with "nickel silver lining strips and window bolections" which removes the need to paint them. Worth some further investigation me thinks.
This may appear twice. Don't know where my first attempt at posting went.
See Phil Brighton's thread for his work on improving the Coronation beaver tail and then painting it. Seems to have petered out though as Phil moved onto other modelling projects.
Looks like a few people have used a silver paint pen for lining.
Phil - If you read this, how did you get on with the Coronation set?
Paul - I think your Coronation coaches look great. If I can give any advice (and I probably shouldn't as you are doing a better job than me) it would be to use masking fluid to do the windows. I used Revel Colour Stop, but Humbrol Maskol might be better as Colour stop dries annoyingly clear and you cant always see if you have covered the area too well. You will still need to bowpen the frames but they will be primed so the paint should take better.
As for my Coronation set its still on the to be finished list. I decided to get a bit better doing some less challenging coaches first before returning to it and now the important task of actually making a layout to run trains on is taking over!
Hi
Thanks for references and ideas, all ideas are gratefully received, I don't consider myself any sort of expert so I try to maintain an open mindedness to other peoples ways of doing things. I've opted to pass on the beaver tail for this train, I've always thought it was an odd looking ugly thing so I suppose I'm building the winter season version of the train.
Work on the coaches over the weekend was fairly minimal, I decided that since the coaches are all open type (Kitchens excepted)and the interiors will be quite visible, they needed some passengers, so I spent my modelling time painting and placing little people in their seats. I know that it's deemed unnecessary by many (watch the Gresley Beat on YouTube, correct me if I'm wrong but I think all the passengers are sitting on the floor, no one drives the loco's either). As well as being a railway modeller I'm a toy train collector so it's inevitable that the two cross paths and some toy like feature creep into my models.
No offence aimed at the people involved with the Gresley Beat by the way, just an observation and possibly an incorrect one based on some YouTube clips where it seemed that the trains were empty.
I've made some more progress today and painted the fairings and roofs. The roofs were sprayed with metallic silver from the Holts auto range and ended up looking really good. Ducting detail above the kitchen is simply pieces of plastic strip filed to look roughly the right shape. I found a useful web site called Elegant Steam (anyone from here??) with illustrations of the complete Coronation set that when printed on A4 paper ended up very close to 00 scale, assuming the diagrams are accurate they were handy for working out the position of the ducts and vents.
The photos show coaches E and F, starting to look like something you might tow behind a nice blue A4, a bit of work to do yet but the light at the end of the tunnel is getting quite bright.
Given my location the obvious choice of A4 would be Dominion Of New Zealand but the only descent, modern A4 I have is Quicksilver in silver/grey livery, anyone know of any instance of a silver A4 on a blue train? I probably have enough reference material to find out for myself but if anyone can confirm/deny it off the top of their head that would much appreciated.
The work I put into the interiors is barely noticeable in the photos so I'll need to learn to take more interesting shots.
Quicksilver did not get changed from silver to blue until May 1938, 10 months after the Coronation train was introduced.
As a Top Shed engine it's certainly possible for her to have been used.
Hi All
Thanks for the comments, I'm glad you like them. Seagull, that's exactly the information I was after, I was unsure if any of the silver A4s made it to the introduction of the Coronation so that's good news for me, ta.
I think I can call these coaches finished now, I might add a little buffer beam detail but as far as the painting goes I'm calling it done. The final tasks were adding the transfers, painting the bogies and then an overall coat of varnish to seal the whole lot. I brushed a bit of clear varnish onto some scrap clear plastic to test that it does indeed dry clear and once satisfied ,I loaded the airbrush and gave the coaches a couple of coats. I've acquired a Pasche model H single action airbrush recently and after a couple of awkward first attempts and giving it a good clean out, I've found it ideal for spraying the water based varnish, with the needle wound out it can move a much greater volume of product that my cheapo double acting brush.
I've started on another pair today, so if time permits tomorrow, I'll take some photo's to illustrate MickB's point about how these Mailcoach kits offer up some interesting challenges with regard to how some of the parts are supposed to fit together, thankfully I haven't had trouble with faulty or poor moulded parts.
Anyway, photos of coaches C,D,E & F, they're pretty shiny now with the gloss varnish, but I guess that's how they should be.
Forgot to mention they dont like curves either , I had to extend the mounting holes to enlarge the gap between coaches too. Glad your mouldings are better perhaps they have been retooled ?
Right then, the main obstacles that needed to be overcome are mostly to do with the fit of parts. The first photo shows the roof moulding and how it relates (or not) to the coach ends, you'll also notice that the moulding isn't an even thickness from one side to the other.
Second photo illustrates that the floor isn't the same length as the sides and leaves a gap to the inner coach end, I used some bits of scrap to bridge the gap and offer a bit of strength to the structure.
The other difficulty is the lack of assembly tabs on the sides or floor so you need to take care to line things up properly before gluing the bits together.
Obviously, none of these faults are insurmountable but no amount of Parkside or Airfix kits can really help out with these, you just have to bite the bullet and have a go.
Now that I have the remaining Coronation kits underway, I had a dig around in my unfinished box to see what looked interesting and dug out my ABS V4 that I started a number of years ago. I had it mostly built but at the time I wasn't confident to finish it. I'd made it as far as painting it green and then packed it away and forgot about it. This afternoon I added the boiler band lining and checked over the running gear, hopefully I can turn it into a nice looking model.
Hi All
The Coronation coach set is all done now, just awaiting some couplings so I can give them a run. In the meantime I've been working away on the V4. Most of the bits are fitted now and I've been busy with the bow pen again. The closer the V4 gets to completion the more I like it, it looks so compact, although when lined up next to other loco's, it's hardly a miniature. If I've read the information on this forum correctly,then the second photo illustrates the three candidates being considered for construction by the A1SLT after they've completed the P2. I'll try this photo again after the V4 is finished as it's hardly fair in its current state. I've spent a fair bit of today working on the tender and adding more detail bits, photo's will have to wait until next weekend to get some time with descent light.
