murphaph

Poorly refined Russian diesel bought by CIE? Or was that an old wives' tale? In the buses it certainly smelled, unique. A stroll along Middle Abbey Street or Fleet Street would leave you with mild brain damage back then.

Not surprised the sales have picked up the pace with these pics. Outstanding.

Yeah it's a shame they are so far off. The way I look at it, either you stick with the wrong shades and try to maintain commonality at least within the different types or you respray the whole lot, which is not particularly appealing to me.

I caught the last bit of evening sun to take some quick comparison pics outside. The coach body is painted in Vallejo game air fire red. For comparison this is RAL 2011 from Modellbau Oesling on the right, sprayed over a Vallejo air white on a Bachmann mk2a FK. On the left is a MM Bachmann mk2a SO:

I suppose different strokes for different folks. I like to match anything I paint to the RTR versions of same, where possible. Some folks will prefer as close a match to the original tones, whatever they were lol. I can plonk this body alongside a selection of RTR models in daylight tomorrow if anyone is interested.

I guess it's personal. I prefer rugged boxy American diesels over flat sided European ones generally.

I already tried it and found it a bit too orange compared to anything available RTR (it's much more orange than say the Bachmann MM mk2a's). This one was done with it but without a control in the picture it probably won't help much: I'm currently evaluating a RAL 2011 from Modellbau Oesling. It's drying at the moment.

Thanks a lot for the quick feedback. I can plan accordingly now .

Fantastic. The 4 IR Tippex ones are the ones I ordered. They look the absolute dogs you know whats. I never really liked the A or C classes in real life but the models have drawn me that bit closer to them.

Holy moly that was quick. I will have to be faster on the second batch. Congratulations! John I presume the open wagons are intentionally unnumbered so they can be renumbered using transfers. Why have you decided to number the brake vans? Will you be doing similar to IRM and with each rerun/batch issue a new number or will the number remain the same? If you plan to release renumbered versions every so often I would just order one each time but if you don't plan on doing this I'd order a few in the next batch.

VAT yes because the Canaries are outside the EU VAT area but now a parcel going from GB to the Canaries is also subject to tariffs. In the model railway world these are often 0% but most products do attract tariffs at something other than 0%.

Yeah makes sense George. It really looks like hard CA though. But it's all over the glazing so it would have surely clouded it like you say. If you really can't find a car primer in white then Vallejo do several base colour primers under the Hobby Paint brand.

So I primed that Bachmann coach and then paused again because i really do not want to use rattle cans any more. My environment is just not great for them. I like to work in my basement and it just seems that the rattle cans kick up too much dust in the spray booth. I much prefer the finish from the airbrush anyway. So my problem was I couldn't find a RAL2011 deep orange (which I find a very good match to the Bachmann/MM mk2a's) in a water based acrylic. In a rattle can, enamel or alcohol based acrylic it was available fairly readily but I struggled to find a water based acrylic until I found this small German manufacturer, Modellbau Oesling. I read a few reviews on German model rail forums and they all seemed happy with the products so I ordered a set to do IR coaches. I also ordered RAL 7030 which is a dead ringer for the toilet window grey on the Bachmanns when I hold a RAL colour swatch against it. For good measure I ordered a primer and a matt varnish. The paints come in 30ml glass jars and cost €4.30 each so similar per ml to Vallejo. They were extremely well packed. Every jar was wrapped individually in a sheet of newspaper and three jars were placed in each layer, separated by more newspaper. Probably the best packaged things I've ever received. I placed the order before the final on Sunday and they arrived an hour ago. That's some service. He seems to offer most colours in gloss or matt. If I can I take gloss to give a smother surface for the transfers without an intermediate coat of gloss varnish, then just dull everything down with matt at the end. I will report back on my experience using them. I suspect Herr Oesling could mix up any RAL colour if asked nicely. All the jars seem to have a serial number!

I hope Martin allows the check rail clearances to be set manually to EM tolerances but keeping the 21mm track gauge of P4. It'll be interesting to see how the check rails are handled full stop

I don't know if it's been mentioned already but Martin Wynne has been busy adding direct 3d printing export capabilities to Templot. The talk is of going straight from design to printing the sleepers and chairs to thread and lay directly. This is pretty awesome I think and I will have to reconsider using soldered PCB sleepers in the visible areas of my layout: https://85a.uk/templot/club/index.php?threads/3d-printed-track-from-templot.218/post-1873

Centre door filled with milliput superfine and sanded. I just used the glazing as a base for the filler. The gangway doors I had to cut out as they were firmly glued in place. I couldn't get the corridor connections off so just masked carefully around them. They'll stay black anyway. I'll remove the masking before the final coats of matt varnish. AFAIK the fawn colour on the Bachmann FK is an error and they were red in reality even with BR. The centre door is noticeably proud of the rest of the coach side, especially lower on the tumblehome. This can be seen in the pics where sanding shows the areas immediately adjacent aren't being touched by the sanding block initially. With a bit of patience however the door bulge is sanded away flush to the coach side. A first coat of primer applied after degreasing.

Does anyone know what glue Bachmann used on these mk2a's? Was it CA or a plastic weld? They overdid it on my BR FKs all around the glazing. I'd like to remove it of it's CA.

Great stuff John. Nice clean webshop there. I'd also be in the market for a couple of the flying snail brake vans and some of the other wagons which are available to preorder. A question which I'll ask here rather than by PM as I reckon I won't be the only one wondering this... Can the more patient among us order several different items and wait until everything is available before shipping as a single package to save on shipping costs?

As I'm largely blocked on further progress on the Limas due to not hearing anything back from Shawplan, I will turn my attention to the Bachmann mk2a's for now. These are the pair with the plated over centre doors. First step is to remove the wire door handle sand back the mouldings around the door frame. I think it's better to do this before filling the window and step because it's much easier to see when I am flush with the coach side as paint starts coming off.

It looks light green to me lol.

Indeed, just following the point rodding is interesting in its own right! Are working semaphores planned LC?

Which of the IRM A Class liveries could have been seen at the same time as the last of the steam engines were still plying their trade?

Thx for the tip David. I've just ordered a copy to have for whenever I try a bit of weathering. Sounds like a good reference, though I won't start spraying enamels any time soon! I hope I can just use acrylics instead. There are some acrylic weathering sets specifically for model railways from Vallejo and Lifecolor and possibly more.

First attempt at DIY transfer stripes. Created on some free SVG graphic tool on a Chromebook and shrunk down to scale then printed out on decal paper with an inkjet printer. Seen here after receiving clear coat of varnish to protect the water based ink when in the water bath: Test coach stripped and resprayed in just the "grey" (I've ordered something a touch darker) and blue: And with one stripe cut out using a scalpel and steel rule: I reckon I'm on the right track with this method. It's dirt cheap (costs basically nothing) and will be a lot less effort than masking the colours individually. I need to get a slightly cleaner cut though I am pretty happy with this I have to say. I made no attempt to get the correct shade of yellow here and the black printer cartridge seems to need a slight alignment but from 2' away that's not visible. Now that I know the method will work for me I can refine it a bit. The stripes are 0.8mm/1.6mm thick.

Beautiful work.