murphaph

I hope the baldy bearded look does suit me cos that's where I'm heading lol!

There's a bit of a look inside on this youtube video:

We'll all descend like vultures on Bray if we're still around. I suppose that auction should remind us that we should leave a note for our loved ones with the real value of all this stuff, just in case we are hit by a bus in the morning! If it ended up in an unsuitable offline auction it might fetch far far less than it's worth. I'm sure I'm not the only one that downplays the cost when a parcel comes through the door lol.

Yeah it sure does work. I take no credit for the idea however. I believe it was in Dhu Varren's NIR conversions thread that I remembered seeing Revell 52 mentioned for this blue, which is probably the most critical colour to get right, but I think it was the enamel version. I don't want to start using enamels though. I have tried to colour match some alternatives for the light grey, red and yellows also required. They are on order but if anyone has exact codes please just shout. Does anyone know if the grey on the roofs of the NIR mk2 stock was the same as BR roof grey? There's a Humbrol water based acrylic I could use (at least as a reference) if so, RC412.

I happened to be in a toy shop yesterday and saw they had the Revell 52 in Aqua Color (that's their water based acrylic range). I decided to just pick it up and see how it behaved with my Vallejo thinners etc. because they are also water based acrylics. It seems to work just fine. I test thinned it about 50:50 and test sprayed a bit to check how close the aqua version is to that deep NIR blue for the mk2 coaches. I think it's definitely close enough.

Went for €403 the baby GM + 2 Cravens including the auctioneer's commission. That's more than eBay sort of money I'd say, and that's assuming the loco is in running order. Prices have exploded of late but that's just mad.

While I'm waiting for Shawplan to return my enquiry about etched window frames I'm a little blocked on further progress as if they worked well for me I would want a uniform fleet of them. I'm thinking about spraying a single test coach in the NIR corporate livery (bumble Bee). I am trying to gather model paint or RAL colour codes of close approximations to the real thing. I've seen Revell 52 mentioned for the dark blue. What about the yellow and grey? Anyone got any codes. I'm afraid mentioning Ford Dove Grey etc. from Halfords won't help me as I'm over in Germany. Any help much appreciated.

Yeah the gantries are the biz.

The plan is (if they work well) to install Keen systems close coupling with the floating corridor connectors so nothing of the actual door should be visible on intermediate coaches. The door in fact needs to be drilled through to fit these units.

Slightly related (just about) but I've seen youtube clips of Kildare in the 90s or early 2000's before the modern PW depot was built showing a timber train waiting in the siding rather than on the middle road to reverse. I wonder was this a failed train or a regular occurrence during busier periods.

A brutal close-up of the end reveals another reason why it's better to spray the orange before the black (apart from the fact that light before dark makes sense). In this order the masking around the ends is easier to get right as the door jamb moulding provides a natural barrier and the masking tape can be applied to the outside edges of it over the orange rather than masking over the irregular relief of the door hinges if masking the inside edges. I will probably stop spraying the gangway doors on most of these coaches now as they will eventually end up close coupled in fixed rakes so only one coach per rake will actually be seen.

Ah yes, I did read about putting the can in a bath of warm water prior to use. I might try them again using that technique. My biggest problem is the sheer amount of paint I needed to get a fine coat on. I had to keep so much distance that 90% of the paint was going over or under the model. I was using like a quarter of a 400ml can of black or orange whereas with the airbrush I used maybe 2ml of black + thinner + flow improver. Anyway, I've ordered a second inexpensive airbrush so I can have them permanently fitted with the 0.2mm and the 0.5mm nozzles, rather than faffing around switching nozzles. The airbrush is only €28 so it's easier to do that and I've read in the reviews that several people have bought additional units to do just that. It has also been suggest to polish the needles of these cheaper airbrushes to improve the finish. Allegedly much of the cost of expensive airbrushes is in this step which you can do yourself with a drill and some very fine wire wool, though for the purposes of spraying coaches it's probably not necessary.

Thx popeye. Having seen your other work I'm sure they'll be masterpieces too. For me the airbrush is kind of insurance against my clumsiness. I can accidentally bring it too close or spray "too much" and because so little is coming out to begin with it's not a problem. I'm thinking I will use the remainder of my rattle can paint by decanting it into the airbrush and spraying it that way.

It worked for me a few minutes ago. I can't explain it either but I have been experiencing the 200 errors. Next time it happens I'll record what it was exactly.

So the big airbrush experiment has ended and I declare it a success lol. The first unit would actually be ok in a layout I reckon. There's a bit of wonky masking around the vent which in hindsight shouldn't be so chunky, but rather flush with the body. The door bumpers are in the right place relative to the door hinges I swear but sadly something is off on the model so they almost touch the lower tippex stripe. In reality there was a few inches between them. I masked off the bumpers and the door stops along with the window band. The overall result is much finer than with the rattle cans (at least in my hands). Much more detail is preserved with the airbrush.

It's been hit and miss for me too from my phone the past few days.

I'm a patient man

I think VAT is a misnomer here. If I import something to Germany from outside the EU VAT area and it gets stopped, I pay Einfuhrumsatzsteuer (import sales tax) rather than Mehrwertsteuer (literally value added tax). The rates between the two are identical but they are legally two different taxes and the import sales tax applies to used goods too. As these things are harmonised across the EU, I suspect the import tax in Ireland is also not strictly speaking a value added tax, but exactly that, an import tax which mirrors the rate of VAT. Basically the new rules are to clamp down on your Chinese eBay seller sending small stuff VAT free and there being a fair chance of it slipping through the cracks in the overburdened system and no tax whatsoever being paid on it.

Awesome. Any pics of the packaging?

Thx David. I tried them in the thread above and the results are really quite good I think and there is no clean up but they are expensive over time and I end up wasting most of the paint in overspray as if I get anywhere close to the model the paint will run (maybe my technique is just poor and with practice I could have less waste), even with the low pressure caps I fitted. I was also going to have a guilty conscience about all those empty rattle cans when I already had a workshop compressor sitting there. It's a decent enough 50L model so I can prime the air tank then shut the compressor off so it isn't running all the time and when primed up to 10bar I can spray for quite a while before it drops below 20psi. I "invested" in a cheap digital manometer so I can hopefully reproduce the pressure accurately. I have to say it was pretty cool to be able to just barely pull the trigger back and paint into corners with the airbrush nozzle just a few mm away from the surface. You can't see anything coming out but the surface starts to slowly change colour. It's going to be like when I first learned to drive a digger, scooping the bucket and moving the arm at the same time to create a smooth transition. Eventually muscle memory takes over I guess and the finger just moves itself, I hope! I can see myself combining the two. I will definitely use rattle cans for the undercoat at least. George told me how he sprays everything but the black window band with rattle cans. The black being done with the airbrush. I think this may be a happy compromise as the black is where the bulk of the detail is and around the windows one wants to avoid too much paint build up as fitting the flushglaze can be problematic as is. Maybe I'll try this hybrid approach on the next one, though I'm keen to keep practicing with the airbrush for now. I'm still very much finding my feet.

I'm not seeing where eBay should be adding VAT on for a sale between two private parties across the Irish border. In the table they provide the last row states that they will not be collecting VAT for sales inside the EU and this is the crux of the matter: NI is not in the EU but it is in the EU's VAT area so the intra-EU rules should apply: Inside EU*, Any value, Inside EU*, No Also note these changes only take effect from the 1st of July according to that page. I suspect eBay are actually (incorrectly) applying UK law in this case as the UK went ahead with all these online VAT changes in January already (the changes were agreed at EU level while the UK was still a member state and the UK went ahead and implemented them as originally planned whereas the EU decided to delay their implementation due to the Covid and Brexit problems for 6 months). I still think eBay is wrong here because NI is in the EU's VAT area and should be treated as such by both the EU and UK. That's the whole point of the protocol, to maintain the all island economy as laid out in the Good Friday Agreement. As we all know with places like the Canaries, being inside the EU itself doesn't mean being inside the EU's VAT area and vice versa. The eBay page is a bit wishy washy there. They should be using the term "EU VAT area", rather than "EU" I think. The Canaries are in the EU but outside the EU VAT area. NI is outside the EU but inside the EU VAT area. There are a handful of other examples of being inside the EU but outside its VAT and customs area, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Büsingen_am_Hochrhein

Thx a lot chaps. Ken, funnily enough I arrived at around 20psi as a comfortable level. I did find myself getting a bit impatient with the small amount of paint coming out.

So I've fired up my airbrush for the first time ever. What can I say....I need more practice but I'm hopeful this is the way to go. Having read a bit online beforehand I knew I wanted to go straight to a double action brush and that I wanted to use acrylics, despite them being trickier according to some accounts I've read. Thankfully I seem to have avoided most all of the technical problems that seem to beset many people trying acrylics, especially Vallejo ones. I am using the air range but I still have to thin it. The end result of the first colour spray is just ok and I'm sure I'll eventually repaint it. I'm going to proceed though so I get practice with all the required colours. Practice makes perfect and all that

Excellent Declan. Fair play to you.

That's exactly what I would have thought if two private sellers sell something in the EU Vat area, be it cross border or otherwise. There's no vat because the seller is not vat registered and is not obliged to be. If eBay is going to apply vat on all private sales then I think they will lose an awful lot of users.