Preparing the layout for its first show

With just four months to go before my club show it was time to put the layout back together and to get some of the major scenery elements done, specifically the hills and platforms. The first task was to drag the boards out of their eight month hibernation and check they all still worked. I managed to get it all set up in two hours without any assistance. This was quite quick and with an assistant to help me position the boards and a battery powderered screwdriver for the bolts I was hoping to halve the time.

Next on the `to do` list  was to connect up the new DCC Power Cab to the main board. This was a simple process as DCC is just a single positive and negative connection and just required removing the old connector and re-routing the power leads to the new location on the board. Fitting the DCC connector points was relatively straight forward. After checking there was no critical wiring behind where I wanted the board to go, I drew a pencil line around the cover plate and in the connector holes, to give the size of the required hole. I then chose a small wood drill and starting at the corners and working inwards drilled as many holes as I could until they started to join together. The final trimming out was then with a narrow chisel and course file. Aim for a hole slightly smaller than you need, as you can always take more out, which is easier than putting it back. As you can see from the picture ( to follow) these sit nice and flush on the side of the board. Three were installed, one for the main controller and two for the second but in practice I don't think the third will be needed. The big question that remained was regarding the power of the basic system, was it enough to run the entire layout or did I need the booster? Well, the system not only worked once it was connected but happly powered two fast trains and a third shunting in the goods yard.

I had also been given some black curtains formerly used on mixing desks by a friend at the club. Not only were these quite thick but they have been fire proofed and have velcro attached at the top. I bought several strips of fluffy self adhesive velco from Wilkinsons, which my mother subsequently informed me could have been obtained much cheaper from a fabric wholesailer and both stuck and stapled these to the edge of the board. I thought the weight of the curtains or a hot hall on as summers day may see them peeling off if I just them stuck on. I,m pleased to say that not ony did these reach to within  a couple of inches of the ground but ran around the three scenic sides of the layout almost to the inch.

Repainting a Bachmann Class 153

A friend at the railway club asked if I would paint a modern 153 DMU in an Anglia Railway livery for his brother. Drawn in by the challenge despite having so many projects on the go, I said I would give it a try and was duly handed the bodyshell, less running gear and windows. I started by masking off the ends to preserve the numbering, cab glazing and the roof colour. The sides then got a coat of white primer, as white was one of the two main colours in the scheme and it meant just the blue had to be painted on. Once sprayed two problems showed up. The first was a reaction between the white and one of the original Bachmann colours. Fortunately this was just a slight wrinkling of the primer and was resolved by sanding back once dry with a very fine decorators sponge and applying another light application of paint. The second was the thickness of the lettering, which was also resolved with some careful sanding, although this did remove some of the rivet detail. Had I known what a problem the rivet detail would be I wouldn’t have been so careful.

Once the second coat of primer had dried I started work on the blue. I bought two acrylic blues close the original colours, one was a light blue for the doors and the other was a little darker for the body sides but not as it turned out dark enough. So about a heaped teaspoon of paint was put in a pot and tiny amounts of dark blue added until the colour was as close to the photographic references as I could get. I didn’t worry too much about an exact match, as it varied in the photographs depending on the light and weather. And according to the owner of the model (an ex-railwayman) the colours quickly faded in service as well. I also learned the school kids used to peel off the warning stickers, so there was no been to worry if they got painted over.

I started with the blue band at the bottom of the body which was quite straight forward. I had sprayed the lower band in the original blue before realising it was too light, so using a lining pen I drew a broad line across the top in the adjusted colour and pained the rest in with a broad brush. As it was already blue this was achieved in just the one coat. Then came the problems. The next step was to use the lining pen to put the outside line in around the windows. This was just above the rivets and where the pen hit even just the side of the rivet it jumped up and down, giving a saw tooth look to the line. Annoyingly, study of the photos revealed flush sides and a complete lack of rivet detail, so had I looked at these before the priming stage, I would have removed all the rivet detail from the model, making life much easier.

Painting around the windows was time consuming and I was going to paint the frames a metallic colour but the owner said not to bother, as the window frames were painted on the glazing. Next the photographs showed a black door seal towards the cab end being a sliding door, so the doors were painted with a light blue and the door seal in black but 100% flat black doesn’t look natural so this was toned down with a Lifecolour Tyre Black. Also the cab ends were all yellow but all my photo references showed them to be half blue, so this was also carefully painted in.

The white primer showed up as the faintest of white edges where it met the roof, so this was washed in with a little dirty brown black, with some black soot weathering around the exhaust. Then came the Orange overhead warning stripe. I used a Humberol rail colour for this, which I think is the BR orange lining colour. The match was good, the paint flowed freely through the pen and gave good coverage, meaning I didn't have to go over it again. Sometimes yellows and reds have poor pigment density and painting over the right colour primer is essential for block colours. And because the line was well above the dreaded rivets, it went on straight and even.

Finally came the dreaded logo. To my knowledge, no one does Anglia logos as transfers and being white they are not easy to print at home. Therefore I found a picture of the logo on the web and scaled it in Photoshop Elements to the size needed on the model. Then I drew it on tracing paper, reversed it and finally rubbed the positive back onto the model. It left only the fairest of outlines but enough to trace with a paintbrush. They are not perfect but until I'm given a set of transfers they are the best I can do. Not bad at 22mm wide by 6mm high though.

So that's it, a final coat of Testors Matt varnish, which was allowed to harden for a couple of days and then back in the box for the return journey. Hopefully I will get the chance to see it running in the near future with all the seats and windows in.