7mm On Heather's Workbench - wider and longer

A couple of shambling steps forward, then a tottering step back. Basic livery colours have gone on, but more than the usual quota of grollies - or hickies, if you’re from a litho print background - make their presence felt. I rather think another round of masking and painting will be required.

Then, I suppose, I will have to settle in for an extended round of picking out the frame panelling in black. Eek!

Hi Heather, The painting looks good in the photos but of course you can view them in real life and spot the 'grollies' and 'hickies'. What do you use to mask off between the chocolate and cream? Cheers, Earl

Earl, I generally spray the cream first, which doesn’t need masking. I let it dry for a couple of days before touching anything, as I use enamels.

I used Tamiya yellow masking tape for the initial edge, helped by the fact I don’t need to be terribly clever or straight as I was masking along a raised panel line which will subsequently be picked out in black. On the larger coaches, I used clingfilm, held along an edge on top of the yellow tape with normal masking tape. For the shorter coaches, I simply used 50mm wide masking tape, which covers to the top part nicely, again using the yellow tape for the edges. In future I’ll use that method as the clingfilm was a right fiddly pain in the wotsit!

The hardest part is masking over hinges. You can push the yellow tape around the protruding part, but there’s always some spray under the edge. In this case, most will be hidden by the black panel edges, but one or two parts will be dealt with by subsequent respraying. Anything left after that will be touched in by brush.

On this livery, the coach ends are the same brown as the sides, so no masking required.

Hi Heather, Thanks for the reply and tips. I agree that painting around the hinges or any raised bit is troublesome. As you said a right pain in the posterior! I had never thought of using clingfilm to mask off areas. Did you use four hands to place it?! If I tried to use it it would curl up in a little ball as soon as I looked at it! Cheers and happy modelling, Earl

Oh, there were lots of little balls of clingfilm. The static caused no end of vocabulary exercise, so I don’t think I’ll repeat the idea quickly. I wanted to use it as a quick method of covering an area to cut down on tape contact with the paint. In the end, I think the wide tape will be sufficient for the next time.

Ah well, that is one idea in the bin (as well as the many balls of clingfilm! Cheers, Earl

As the cream coat had had time to harden well, I used the wide tape alone to mask it for repair coats of chocolate. Later, I’ll strip the masking and leave things alone for a couple of days more, then risk the same routine to mask off the chocolate and respray the cream.

This stage of a build can be the most frustrating and lengthy, so it’s just as well I have a few other things to keep me busy while paint dries.

Heather Kay said:

This stage of a build can be the most frustrating and lengthy, so it’s just as well I have a few other things to keep me busy while paint dries.

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Don’t sit and watch the paint dry Heather, I tried that once and got awfully bored.

Ian.

Heather Kay said:

The hardest part is masking over hinges. You can push the yellow tape around the protruding part, but there’s always some spray under the edge.

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To prevent paint leakage would drops of Maskol/Copydex plugging the gaps work?


From the photographs it appears the window frames stand proud and the next bit now sounds counter intuitive.

I would have masked the top half of the coach and sprayed the chocolate first. Once hardened, masked the chocolate to under the window frames then applied the cream. Depending where the door hinges were this may have reduced the need to try and wrap the tape around them.

As for masking large areas I just use the wide Tamiya tape and newspaper. I use newspaper as this can be removed/torn off in strips unlike cling film which I assume has to come off in one piece.

This van was basically done in the following order
Cream primer
Cream top coats
Mask cream along waist line.
Brown coats to ends and sides
Gold lining (really ochre as the gold is lost over the cream)
Black to beadings
Finally fine brown lining on the cream

That’s the order I’ve found works best for me.

There's always a better way to do things! I have used the Copydex hinge masking method before, but the overspray in this case is minimal and can be cleaned up or painted over later.

I hope I can get the cream resprayed on Friday, giving the brown stuff a fair time to harden for masking tape application.

Brown masked off, cream resprayed.

My iffy soldering showed up again. As I began to spray one side of a shorter coach, I noticed one of the window mouldings had come completely off. A while later, I found it, still attached to the masking tape strip that had covered the cream earlier!

A couple of hinges have also gone AWOL since painting began. I decided the easiest thing was to ignore them until painting was complete. They can be replaced later and dabbed with a spot of paint.

I think I shall spend part of the weekend choosing nice, lengthy, soothing music to accompany an endless session of painting the mouldings, which will commence on Monday.

Ah, a Hamlet cigar moment! If no cigar, a nice ice cream cone or Magnum ice lolly will do, especially as it is going to be HOT today (or so they have said)! Or of course you could watch the royal wedding. Cheers, Earl

Lightman said:

Or of course you could watch the royal wedding.

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As a card-carrying republican I shall be doing my utmost to avoid the wedding. Best Beloved is of much the same opinion, so we have decided to catch up on things that amuse us. I rather think there’s been far too much mainstream media hooey about the thing for the past couple of days.

Actually, I’ve found myself with an unexpected free day today, so I think some housework and some me-time modelling might be in order. Still to decide on my music choices for Monday.

I shall be off to a model railway exhibition.

Len

Wibble.

May? Really‽



Gold lining going on, scruffily. It looks better from a distance. Warren H is pushing me to do the fine brown lines round the cream panels… I’m having a good think about it.

Still to do: window and droplight painting, roof detailing and painting, internal painting, lettering.

I had the privilege to see thes coaches at the weekend and they are stunning very very nice
Well done Heather
John

Thanks John. I think we’re always our own worst critic when it comes to our work!

With good progress being made and some paint drying on the other coaches infesting my bench, and I turned my attention once more to things broad gauge. This time, more roofs.

I’m really not happy with the roofs of these coaches. We are, however, where we are. I am not going to invest more blood and tears on them. So, I prepped things for more painting.

I had been holding off on making the lamp top trivet bases on the brass roofs, mainly because I was feeling lazy. I looked at them again, and felt the trivets would sit on the roof, albeit at a slight angle, without further mucking about. Buoyed by that decision, I began to sort out the door and clerestory ventilator castings.

These were tidied as required, counted out and matched for sizes, and stuck to some scrap wood sheet with double-sided tape for painting to begin. They have been primed with grey acrylic, and are about to be subjected to a coat or three of cream enamel.

The roofs were likewise primed in grey. It’s amazing the difference it makes to see something concocted from various materials all finally in a uniform colour. I have pondered how to replicate some sort of texture on them, and elected to experiment with white acrylic primer. I sprayed it from about 40 to 60cm with the hope the paint droplets would dry before they had a chance to join with their comrades. I think it may have worked. I’ll check, and get piccies later, once the air has cleared of fumes!

Well, it sort of worked. There’s a hint of grittiness on the surface. I may try another squirt or two to try and build it up a bit.