Philip's Workbench

[David Holman]

Great work and love to see people trying new things and learning new skills. Experimenting is what it is all about, though also worth remembering that sometimes, the old fashioned paint brush is the best tool for small areas like the gangway doors.

[murphaph]

8 hours ago, popeye said:

Do you put the corridor connector back on? and if so, that would cover the dayglo orange.

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.

[murphaph]

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. 

[murphaph]

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. 

 

Edited June 20, 2021 by murphaph

[popeye]

Looks like a good match.

[murphaph]

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.

Edited June 20, 2021 by murphaph

[murphaph]

A first attempt at a colour test of the NIR corporate livery:

I paid little attention to the masking hence the bleed in places.

I'm happy enough except for the lower grey band. It should be a touch darker than the Vallejo insignia white I've used here. I didn't bother with the bottom black band and I can see the stripes are all a bit too thick. I've ordered alternative masking tapes for this. If anyone knows the actual thickness of the stripes that would be great.

[iarnrod]

Those stripes are available as transfers from Railtec.

[murphaph]

Thx iarnrod yeah I'm aware of them but they aren't cheap. They cost twice as much as the donor coach lol.

I will be looking to do a couple of rakes if these in time so that adds up.

Nevertheless I'll order one pair to see if I can justify the expense and to see if I have the skills to apply such a long transfer in a straight line!

[iarnrod]

Nice effort on the NIR coach btw.

Railtec transfers are excellent quality, so would imagine transfers would be the easier option than trying to mask off the correct width stripes, especially if you are planning quite a few coaches.

Phoenix paints used to do the paints for MIR back in the day, but unsure if any of the Irish colours are still available in that range.

[David Holman]

Professional painter and liner Ian Rathbone shares a great tip in his books on the subject. Wait until the paint has gone half hard (up to 24 hours with enamels), then lightly wet a fine brush with thinners and you can then use it to remove any over painting or blemishes. Fiddly, but works a treat. Pushing the brush against any over painting lifts the paint a little; wipe the brush on a cloth and repeat the process until satisfied.

 Precision Paints are fine, but beware ordering by post. Delivery cost is eye watering if you only want small amounts.

Edited June 27, 2021 by David Holman

[popeye]

A good tip, but I would try and lift the paint about half an hour after painting and

it makes lifting the paint much easier.

[Dhu Varren]

Check this out. Model Irish Railways did a sheet of 'Bumble Bee Stripes' and these appear of Fleabay from time to time. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/114769445134?hash=item1ab8cac10e:g:CDgAAOSw7yxfpbpz

Much cheaper than the ones from Railtec. I have used them on some of my coaches, along with full paint stripes, and even produced my own on my PC. Hard to tell them apart.

[popeye]

Check this out.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/114769445134?hash=item1ab8cac10e:g:CDgAAOSw7yxfpbpz 

Black, white, yellow stripes.

These are vinyl stick on type and not transfers.

[murphaph]

Thanks for all the pointers guys. I think those vinyl stripes are surely worth a punt at that price. My only concern from the pics is that the white stripe looks very thin relative to the black. From looking at coach pics I reckon the white stripes were half the height of the black and yellow stripes. I reckon the white were 2" and the black and yellow were 4" but that's just by looking at them relative to the grab handles and comparing to the 3" lining used by IR.

I suppose in the end they just need to pass the 2' rule though. 

[Dhu Varren]

Oops, did not notice that the stripes were self adhesive vinyl. Just assumed they were waterslide, just like the ones I got from MIR years ago.

The overall width of my 'Bumblebee' stripes is about 4.25mm top to bottom.

Below is a screengrab of the end of an NIR coach showing quite clearly the stripes. From this it should be easy to work out the proportional width of each colour.

 

[murphaph]

I'm going to try those vinyl stripes anyway. They might work ok with a coat of varnish over the top of everything. I've also ordered a single set of the Railtec ones to see if they are worth the money. I do highly rate the Railtec stuff. The transfers I used up thread on the IR mk2b's are all Railtec. 

I've also ordered a selection of thin masking tapes from Jammy Dog so I have three possible ways to skin this particular cat.

It seems like NIR also modified the corporate livery in some respects. I have pictures of the roofs in a medium gloss grey as well as a matt black. Was there any pattern to this or was it random?

I've also seen the window frames unpainted and painted around the outside. Same question.

The cantrail is also painted the same light grey as the tumblehome, unless it's a first or diner, in which case it follows the yellow/red convention. Correct? 

I believe the gutters were painted the same light grey and it wrapped around the end of the coach, unlike the cantrail stripe. Most pics show the gutters very dirty, almost black, but I do believe they were painted grey initially. Could someone confirm? The Lima mk2b coach roof has a little ridge to represent the gutter which could be painted I suppose.

[Dhu Varren]

Have examined many pictures of NIR Bumblebee liveried coaches, and there seems to be three categories of gutters, colour wise.

1. The gutter is painted light grey like the cantrail, but the grey only extends round the end as far as where the grey cantrail does, namely the edge of the door.

2. The gutter is painted light grey like the cantrail, but the grey extends all the way round the end as far as the gangway.

3. The gutter is painted the same colour as the roof. It is highly unlikely that a gutter would be so dirty that a light grey painted one would look like it was roof coloured, as carriage washing plant would clean off any accumulated dirt like the rest of the body side. For example, the picture posted earlier looks to me to be a roof coloured gutter, rather than a dirty light grey one. 

[murphaph]

Thanks a lot for your efforts David. The roof coloured guttering is certainly the easiest to reproduce. Might do one or two of them with grey gutters for a bit of variety though

[murphaph]

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.

[murphaph]

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.

 

[murphaph]

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.

[murphaph]

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!

 

[murphaph]

So this is the Bachmann mk2a FK body after spraying with the Oesling paints mentioned above. I think I'm going to stick with this combination for IR resprays. The paint is very nice to spray with. Just thin to skimmed milk consistency with plain tap water (as recommended by the manufacturer). I added a few drops of Vallejo flow improver but Herr Oesling says you can use the tiniest bit of washing up liquid to do the same. I didn't have tip dry once using this paint, painting at 22 degrees and about 55% rh.

Unmodified side:

Blanked centre door side:

[Rob]

Really straight, clean lines.   Very, very sharp.

[Noel]

Excellent respray, crisp and super sharp. The lining looks factory finish perfect, no wavey lines nor bleed. Well done getting that done in these high temps to a high standard. It almost seems a shame to weather it.

[murphaph]

Thx guys. There are a few masking errors but weathering will cover them. I can learn to weather on these resprays rather than on a factory finish coach.

There's a bit of waviness but it's mostly the coach itself. I hadn't realised how irregular the sides are on these coaches. The roof/side interface is actually far better on a Lima!

Anyway the finish is largely thanks to these paints. They cover very well so I didn't need to apply as many coats so there is noticeably less of a step between masked areas. The coats are so thin the outline of the original warning flashes which are tampo printed can still be seen under the white, orange and black coats!

So next time I'll actually strip the paint off these.

I think I'll do both numbers in both IR and IE. 

 

 

[Robert Shrives]

Sharp work as noted, you must be pleased - I wish mine was that good.  

take care and hope postman good to you soon. 

Robert 

[murphaph]

Thx Robert. I have a feeling the postman is delayed a bit because of the flooding in Western Germany.

[murphaph]

Not modelling per se but my future layout home is finally getting cleared out. I've painted everything white. The floor will be tiled in something cheap and cheerful. Don't need Italian marble in here (we don't have Italian marble anywhere, just in case that's not clear lol)

The layout will, as I mentioned previously, be of the multi deck shelf type. I believe a room this shape and size will lend itself well to this concept. I will use the room itself as the outer boundary of a "helix" (sometimes referred to as a nolix or around the room spiral) to allow trains move from staging (top and bottom shelves) to the (hopefully) 3 scenic shelves and back. It will function therefore as a very long point to point layout, with trains originating at either upper or lower staging, passing through each scenic shelf in turn before terminating off scene in the opposite staging area.

The layout will attempt to depict a decent chunk of the Dublin to Cork mainline around Kildare.

I'm fortunate that the room is in the basement part of the house and is heated (underfloor heating was specified to ensure no rads got in the way).

I am most likely going to teach myself to weld and build the frame out of steel, with rigid insulation board as the subbase. So little or no timber will feature. I have seen this approach used on a couple of US layouts.

I'm aiming for long sweeping runs of mainline with prototypically long trains, with one station per shelf so trains enter the scene, do their bit and leave. I like looking at trains running, more than shunting. I will have a bit of reversing to do at Kildare and some shunting at the Athy cement factory but not much. The room is 10' 2" wide and just about 30' long. I had considered a peninsula but realistically I don't think I have the width in 21mm to do that and I want some circulation space to remain anyway. I might put a small modelling bench in the centre of the room.

Why paint the walls when they will not be visible at the end? I will someday have to try to find a lost spring or something in behind the backscene I'm sure, so I want everything in there as bright as possible, especially the staging areas.

From the other end:

[popeye]

That's a good size of a room so you won't have to squeeze it all into a small space.

White walls and ceiling will help to soften the light.

This will have a lot of interesting scenes in it and it will be nice to see it progress. 

Good luck.

[NIRCLASS80]

All the best exciting times. 

1 hour ago, murphaph said:

Not modelling per se but my future layout home is finally getting cleared out. I've painted everything white. The floor will be tiled in something cheap and cheerful. Don't need Italian marble in here (we don't have Italian marble anywhere, just in case that's not clear lol)

The layout will, as I mentioned previously, be of the multi deck shelf type. I believe a room this shape and size will lend itself well to this concept. I will use the room itself as the outer boundary of a "helix" (sometimes referred to as a nolix or around the room spiral) to allow trains move from staging (top and bottom shelves) to the (hopefully) 3 scenic shelves and back. It will function therefore as a very long point to point layout, with trains originating at either upper or lower staging, passing through each scenic shelf in turn before terminating off scene in the opposite staging area.

The layout will attempt to depict a decent chunk of the Dublin to Cork mainline around Kildare.

I'm fortunate that the room is in the basement part of the house and is heated (underfloor heating was specified to ensure no rads got in the way).

I am most likely going to teach myself to weld and build the frame out of steel, with rigid insulation board as the subbase. So little or no timber will feature. I have seen this approach used on a couple of US layouts.

I'm aiming for long sweeping runs of mainline with prototypically long trains, with one station per shelf so trains enter the scene, do their bit and leave. I like looking at trains running, more than shunting. I will have a bit of reversing to do at Kildare and some shunting at the Athy cement factory but not much. The room is 10' 2" wide and just about 30' long. I had considered a peninsula but realistically I don't think I have the width in 21mm to do that and I want some circulation space to remain anyway. I might put a small modelling bench in the centre of the room.

Why paint the walls when they will not be visible at the end? I will someday have to try to find a lost spring or something in behind the backscene I'm sure, so I want everything in there as bright as possible, especially the staging areas.

From the other end:

 

[irishthump]

Fantastic space for a layout! Looking forward to see how the helix works with the various levels planned. Personally I wouldn't be brave enough to try a helix and I think I'd just do a round the room with long gradients to any upper level(s).

[Noel]

Sounds like an excellent concept. Let us know when you've sketched up some track plans. (railmodeller pro on mac is good)

Edited December 18, 2021 by Noel

[Adrian]

Very nice dude, looking forward to following this!

I’ve just caught up on this thread and have a noob question: you mention brake fluid for stripping the coaches in the first few posts...do you mean actual car brake fluid and if so why do you use this? Presuming it’s something to do with not being too harsh? Thanks in advance