Noel

Cheers. I'll let it cure overnight, pop it back on the EGV tomorrow and take a pic for comparison. It will be a little bit different, but once weathered hopefully it will all blend in together. I'm not changing anything on the standard mk2 coaches just weathering. So far I have always used a Tamiya mix for CIE tan/orange colours, this is the first time I've mixed Vallejo primary colours from their basic set of 8 'model air' colours for tan/orange.

An urgent remedy seems needed while they debug the hardware and find a mathematical traffic model that will work optimally with bus and other road traffic. I'm sure in time it will improve somewhat. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/call-for-alternative-transport-to-luas-during-rush-hour-1.3432987 Most of us are possibly closer to the same hymn sheet than we might think, and I'm sure can respect one another's differing opinions on the solutions needed. As Monty Pythons black knight might say, "tis but a scratch!"

MM Mk2 - Multi part mission. Convert a black roofed MM mk2d EGV to an orange roofed EGV (orange ones are rare as hens teeth) Weather a rake of orange roofed MM mk2d coaches - primary reason is to dull down the yellow shade of orange they come with out of the box Put some passengers inside the coaches Change the couplings to Kadee Optional - put lighting inside coaches Well lets see how far I get. I had been unable to acquire an orange roofed EGV so originally I bought a supertrain livery EGV with the intention of adding the tippex white stripes to convert it, but decided it would be easier to convert a black roofed EGV because it would be a quick simple respray of the removable roof, with no masking, whereas adding the tippex without reverse masking to a high standard would have been quite difficult, and wavey stripes are something that drive me nuts - OCD I know perhaps. First job was to figure out how to get the roof off without resorting to use of a vice grips or a block hammer, but @Glenderg came to the rescue with advice and the roof popped off easily with little force required (see clips below). Roof off ready for priming Because of the contrast between the black and orange on the roof I decided to prime it with Halfords plastic grey primer. With hindsight a white primer would have been better as I would have required less coats of the orange latter to fully hide the dark grey. I mixed Vallejo model air 71.002 (yellow) and 71.102 (red) by eye until I got the shade of tan/orange I was looking for. The ratio was 35:1 Yellow/Red because the red pigment was incredibly strong. Only 2 drops of red for every 70 drops of yellow to get this shade. I know it is more orange than the existing coaches but to my eye right or wrong the shade of orange looks more like I remember than the yellow dominant shade on MM Mk2d's. Hopefully the weathering will help it blend in on the EGV as I won't have to respray the orange roofed mk2's I have, just weather them, and the EGV roof will get a lot more weathering than the coaches. Well thats my theory anyway - the proof will be in the eating I guess when its all finished. The roof in the middle is the respayed EGV with the deeper shade of orange, the roof below is the original MM colour with the yellow tint. By way of comparison I put an MM 085 body shell beside the resprayed roof. They look somewhat closer to my eyes. Anyway photos are very subjective with indoor lighting with white balance issues on cameras so will rarely look like the prototypes outdoors. That's it for now. Next step is add passengers, perhaps lighting and then gently weather the rake one coach at a time.

Very impressive so far guys.

Good find Paul. They sell Vallejo and Tamiya paints at reasonable prices.

Yes I've only had it a year, but so far so good. It has a moisture trap and the size of the tank makes using it almost silent most of the time. I got the setup on Richie's recommendation and was very happy with it despite my recent boo-boo which turned out to be self inflicted.

White smoke! Thanks to a PM from Richie and info in his post link above, I figured out how to get the Murphy Model Mk2d coach roof off. It actually pops off fairly easily if you use a wooden tooth pick or narrow screw driver at one of the coach ends, a small section pops up and then you gently wiggle and twist the roof until the other snap fittings gently release and it pops off. It does not require any significant force. Now to repaint the black roof orange/tan and add some gentle weathering, but that'll be for another thread.

Hi Paul. I used one of these £77 TC88T compressors which as a moderate sized 3L reservoir and 1/5hp, so the motor is off most of the time because you are drawing air from the tank rather than direct from pump. You would need to add a hose and airbrush. Think they also do kits including compressor and airbrush. I used an original Veda 134S, but apparently the Veda guy didn't file his trademark and there are now a few of rip-offs of poor quality, so BartSharp have launched their own range comparable to the Veda. Compressor: https://bartsharp.co.uk/index.php/compressors/airbrush-compressors-and-complete-kits/tc88t-airbrush-compressor.html Airbrush: https://bartsharp.co.uk/index.php/bartsharp-airbrush/bartsharp-airbrush-130-dual-action-gravity-feed-airbrush.html Having a compressor with an air tank has been useful for me. Hope this helps. Noel

Sublime Eoin. You must have spent more than a few hours in Bolton streets engineering labs when your were supposed to be attending architecture lectures all those years ago.

Has anybody removed the roof off an MM Mk2d? Richie's post below mentions it popping off at the ends but mine also seem glued or friction fitted along the sides. I was hoping to put passengers in some coaches, add coach lighting, and respray the proper shade of tan/orange. If you had a photo of the inside of a roof that would be really helpful to see where they are attached. Thanks in advance. Noel http://irishrailwaymodeller.com/topic/3996-mk-2-supertrain-coaches/?page=4&tab=comments#comment-63248

Where is this station? http://steverabone.com/RailwayPhotographs/irelan126.jpg I'm assuming its in Northern Ireland.

Thanks Popeye. Encouragement from a skilled maestro such as yourself is humbling. The cutting and filling was scary but took it slow. CIE Brake Parcel van made it debut on the layout this evening. Its play time.

"Travail Incroyable" Translated = Incredible Work

Thanks Jonathan. ''Twas your advice last year that gave me the idea of doing a brake parcel. Cheers Paul. The main thing was it was enjoyable.

CIE Brake Parcel Van finished at last. Converted from a Bachmann LMS parcel van. Lightly weathered using a mix of weathering powders and airbrush. I've enjoyed doodling with this little project. I'm reasonably happy the way the light weathering turned out. Woodvale Junction station pilot about to shunt CIE brake parcel van onto rake of laminate coaches. Bachmann donor before and after conversion

Thanks good info, yes I'm aware of that. Gave the brush a good bath with soapy water afterwards and then ran water through it for a good while.

Quad track from Bray to Howth Junction and t'would be no problem except for finance. Then commuters from Louth, Wicklow, Wexford could get quickly into Dublin city centre instead of tail gating Darts congestion. A train journey that is slower than a car seems rather like a broken pencil - pointless.

Yehaw! Veda 186 airbrush is back in operation and working perfectly again! You never stop learning. Thanks to Richie, Irishtump and Eoin for your advice. A combination of all eventually worked. I was flummoxed and about to give up but then thought I'd nothing to loose so had one last try. I striped everything of the body and gave it on its own another ultrasonic bath, but this time for a long 6 minutes. Then I soaked it for two hours in surgical spirits. Put it back together again and this time I could tell immediately that there was more air pressure and when tested with water a lovely fine mist come out of it. So next was to try it with real paint which worked a dream. I very lightly weathered two CIE craven coaches. Mainly under frames, bogies, coach ends and a little on the roof. Thank you guys! There's always something new to learn.

They are working on solutions (see IT piece below). Hopefully one day it will all gel together. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/longer-luas-trams-withdrawn-due-to-fault-in-system-1.3429510 Far in the future I would love to be able get to Heuston from Bray by rail in 30 minutes, change platform and be in Cork by rail two hours later. That would be 10 minutes quicker than I can do it by road at the moment point2point.

Well done Tony. You've cast off and you are now underway making way. (forgive the nautical analogy). Best of luck with the ongoing development and most importantly of all, I hope it proves an enjoyable journey for you.

Amazerballs - The story telling is fantastic. Pure genius, pure class, visual entertainment extraordinaire.

Light weathering completed and transfers added. Now matt varnish, glue prepared glazing in, and put it on the weathered chassis.

Thanks Richie. Its been through the ultrasonic bath which can shift even time! I think I've kybashed it myself by removing the nozzle too many times recently. Up to a month ago I never removed the nozzle from either airbrush and never had a problem. I think this is the problem combined with my hands. Its my own fault, I should have stuck to my previous cleaning regime as it always worked. I recently changed my pattern after watching a few YouTubes on cleaning which suggested removing the needle out through the front of the airbrush instead of rear ward so that you wouldn't pull paint back up into inside of the brush, but this obviously requires the nozzle to be unscrewed. Clearly the threads and O rings didn't like this man handling by me. With hindsight it wasn't necessary to disassemble as much as I was doing for deep cleans.

That's sounds like good advice. The Veda doesn't owe me a whole lot after a whole years use costing me about €35. It served its purpose as a great starter air brush while I learned before committing to a long term product. Iwata, Badger or H&S will be researched. Presume the neo is dual action, but does it had a trigger limiter?

The plot thickens. I was cleaning my Veda 134 earlier and when I put the 0.3mm nozzle back its sheared in half even though I was hand tightening it. I managed to twist the broken half threaded section and get it out of the air brush. Replaced the entire needle set with a 0.2mm set (i.e. needle, nozzle and nozzle cap) and at least the 134 is now working again but the 186 remains a mystery. Braking one air brush is unfortunate, two in 24hrs seems careless! I've loved using these two Veda air brushes over the past 12 months and never had trouble before, but I suspect all my problems stem from a recent change in cleaning pattern. I never removed the nozzles before when cleaning and used to withdraw the needle rear wards out of the air brush for cleaning. Recently I started removing the needle forwards out of the air brush so that any paint on the needle would not be pulled into the innards as per my previous method which never caused a problem anyway. The way I removed the needle forwards was first to pull it back into the airbrush by about 7mm (so its not under any load in next step), then remove the nozzle cover, unscrew the nozzle using the micro spanner supplied with the brush, and then pull the dirty needle forwards out of the gun. I'm beginning to suspect that the more frequent unscrewing of the nozzle due to its soft material has created air gaps, but I could be wrong. It was difficult to know how much to tighten it when screwing back on. I beginning to wonder if its time to invest in a higher quality air brush, OR fix what I am doing wrong?