Finished 14

Some models need to be weathered before they look "right" and the Class 14 is just such a beast. It looks OK clean but a waft of dark earth, weathered black and track colour really bring it alive.

The spraying wasn't very precise, I started with earth on the lower regions. Then the black along the top to represent the outporing of the exhasut. Finally a general going over the with "Underframe dirt" to unify the model.

To finish up the windows were glazed with shirt collar plastic and weathering powders daubed around the buffer beams. It's almost a shame to hand this one over as it looks lovely. If you are a Gauge 1 modeller, get in touch with Mercian Models to enquire about the kit, which should be available next year.

Vac pipes

Today's lesson is to pay attention to prototype photographs before working on a model.

I normally paint vacuum pipes on the ends of model locomotive with a pale grey or cream colour. After a wash of track colour the results look pretty convincing to my eye. This I did on the class 14.

Then I looked at some photos to ascertain the colours of the cables also on the buffer beam. At this point I discover that the Vac pipes are black. Doh.

D9502

Top service from Fox Transfers. I had a little panic on Monday night realising that the loco had to be delivered on Friday and the only time I had to finish it was Wednesday evening. Worse, I was out of suitable numerals in my transfers box. I had numbers but no letter D's

Could I paint these ? After a few minutes thought I decided the answer was no. It would look rubbish, even from a distance in thick fog.

So, off to the web site and place an order. Fox processed it on Tuesday and they were in my hand on Wednesday. Relief.

All I had to do was pick a number. Some would look at photos of the real thing and decide on a loco to model. All I did was work out how to avoid using all of any particular digits on the sheet. Hence, 9502 - no repeats !

Wasp stripes

Of all the jobs I don't look forward to when painting a model locomotive, it's got to be warning stripes on the ends known as "wasp stripes". They are eye-catching (obviously) and yet fiddly to get right.

I've tried various methods over the years. For the G1 Class 14 my method was simple - hand them over to my Father and get him to mask the lines. This wasn't laziness on my part, it's just that to get them right takes time and that was something I didn't have thanks to work commitments.

My plan had been to cover the entire door, draw the lines and then cut away the unwanted masking. He cut the tape into strips and carefully stuck them to the yellow painted parts.

All I had to do was paint the unmasked area with some Humbrol matt black and carefully peel the tape away. The results look pretty good I think.

How green is my roof ?

Cracking on with the Class 14, I'm having a few problems working out the livery. For example, most of the locos had a roof the same colour as the body. Except the one I have photos of, a preserved example, which has a grey one.

There is also an interesting variation of black bits and green bits. This differs between machines too.

Of course, you will be telling me to go and get a photo of a single loco and stick to that. Fine, except that the only one I have comprehensive coverage of is the preserved example, and I think that's wrong.

Removing paint

Horror !

Dark green paint has appeared on the cabside door !

Obviously when I peeled the masking tape off a couple of weeks ago, some of it or a painty finger, touched the door leaving a mark.

I couldn't be bothered to repaint so decided to try and remove the problem. Annoyingly I searched for a bottle of T-Cut but couldn't find any. I reckon the cats have stolen it. Determined to get the job done I tried some Brasso wadding which being a mid abrasive, quickly removed the mark. I need to clean the residue off with a cotton bud and some water but apart from polishing up the door, it worked pretty well.

Nead. More. Paint

Returning the Class14, I really have to stop kidding myself. Despite covering the body in an entire jar of green paint, there are still areas where the primer is showing through the paint. In this case that the photo actually looks better than the real model - the contrast doesn't show quite as badly as in daylight.

Mind you, if the locomotive is only seen in the confines of my garage than everything looks fine and dandy...

Anyway, a new pot of green and I've touched in the corners and other areas that need a bit extra pigment. The areas between the engine bay doors are still a bit light but a light wash of weathering will sort this out.

Whitemetal crank

As a test model the Class 14 doesn't benefit from all the parts being finalised. Some are simply test shots that will do to prove the model but wouldn't be good enough for production.

Which is why the drive cranks are made from whitemetal. This might have been considered good enough in the old days but now we expect a bit more quality. Not that there is anything wrong with whitemetal per se but it isn't ideal for this sort of application. For a start when it comes out of the mould it shrinks. The shrinkage varies depending on the thickness of material. Real experts can allow for this but they cost a lot of money and so in the modelling world things can be a bit more hit and miss. In this case the crank throw isn't awfully accurate.

Now I could get away with this by reaming out the hole in the coupling rod a lot. The crank just needs to go around - drive can be supplied by one of the wheels instead. This works in other scales, not pretty but effective. In the larger scales though people might fancy driving the crank just like the real thing, which is one of the reasons milled steel is being investigated for this part.

Anyway, I still had to do something and decided that rather than try painting the crank in steel coloured paint which never looks convincing, I'd polish the whitmetal - it looks very different to the dull alloy you normally see with a little elbow grease. A few minutes with jewellers paper sticks and then some Brasso brought the metal to a shine. A coat of sating varnish and once lightly weathered it should look nice.

Dark green paint

Yet again I have been surprised by the size of this G1 Class 14. To do all the dark bits has taken an entire pot of paint.

A sensible person would have realised this and mixed it up in a glass jar attached to the airbrush. I didn't and had to keep stopping to refill the paint cup. By the end of the process my fingers were pretty green.

Note: the paint isn't really that thin in certain parts. It's just that the spraybooth is in the garage and it's a bit dark in there so I had to use the flash on the camera.

The masking looks to have done its job. I remember reading somewhere that you should remove it as quickly as possible once painting has finished otherwise the colour dries hard and tears when the tape is being removed. Also that paint stays liquid and getting the tape off allows it to relax and not form ridges along the lines of colour.

Masking up

Having been a bit busy during the week, I was running out of stuff for the blog. Looking at the projects available I decided that spraying the Class 14 would be the best bet for a Sunday morning. With the cab in light green and buffer beam in yellow, I just had to do a bit of masking and then fire up the airbrush full of dark green to make a big step forward.

I don't like masking stuff. It never seems to work very well for me as regular readers will have spotted. The best tape I've found is a sort of paper/fibre brown stuff which no longer seems to be for sale. I bought my stocks from a now defunct model shop and added to the supply a couple of years later on discovering how good it was - but I can't remember where I did this. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Anyway, the painted bits were carefully covered and great efforts have been made to get a good sharp edge. I hope it works.

Yellow paint and near disaster

I thought I'd better do a proper job on this locomotive. Rather than use Humbrol yellow on the ends, I treated myself to some Precision Paints yellow. This appears to be slightly greener than the "wrong" version to my eye. I'm going to assume it's correct though or hundred of finescale nerds are going to have the vapours...

Anyway, the yellow was reasonably thick but still had the usual useless covering properties of the colour. I know this and yet still forgot to put on a white undercoat (on the loco, if you are looking for fashion advice, go somewhere else). Still, after around half a bottle I'd done the buffer beams and nose doors. I know this is a big loco but that still seems a lot to me. I reckon Halfords for paint next time !

Anyway, the model was carefully propped up securely (I thought) on boxes on the bench to dry properly. In the morning I checked on it and was more than  a little surprised to see an empty bench. Worse, the model itself was lying on the floor.

Panicking a little I picked it up and examined the damage:

• A squashed buffer housing
• Two handrail supports no longer attached to the handrail
• Some scuffs on the nose
• A lifting ring missing (later found on the bench)

I desperately tried to work out of the model had twisted. All the other damage was easy to fix but a bent loco would be bad news. You can't easily restore this sort of thing as the metal stretches.

Fortunately, the square seemed to show that all was acceptably OK. The model had bounced off the bench and on to some carpet on the floor that I have to keep my delicate tootsies warm. Had it hit the concrete floor things would have been a lot worse.

Dirty black chassis

After dismantling the Class 14 diesel, I took the chassis down to the sptray booth and mixed up a nice paint cup full of Precision Dirty Black paint. For some reason the paint was the consistance of double cream and filled the jar to the brim. I've no complaints but is was a suprise and took more thinner than normal.

There are a lot of nooks and crannies to get the paint into. Using the airbrush was the right move as doing this by hand would take ages and more than one brush I suspect.

Class 14 Diesel, in Guage 1 !

What a beast. Yet another Class 14 diesel on this blog, but this time the model is in Gauge 1 which makes it a bit of a whopper. Over the buffers it measures 35cm and weighs as much as a small car.

The model is from a soon to be released etched brass kit from Mercian Models. Trevor dropped it off for me to wave the airbrush at. I escaped building duties as the guy who mastered the castings took care of this. I think I could have done it although my soldering iron might have been usurped by the gas torch for most of the work as there are some pretty chunky lumps of brass to play with.

The model is 10mm to the foot but will be produced at 1/32nd scale to suit the majority of modellers in G1. I think it might be popular as the resulting model has rugged good looks and plenty of space for the sort of motor capable of dragging dead steam engines and trains out of harms way.

What you are looking at is a test build of course. There will be more development before production. Much of the brake gear will be cast in lost wax brass rather than whitemetal. A cab interior is going to be developed, flycranks will be in milled steel and a few other little niggles will be attended to.

Mind you, even at this stage of development, I wouldn't mind one. Not sure what I'd do with it though - micro layouts in G1 are still pretty large !

Dirty bear

Dirty 14
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Lots of dirty. That's what this model locomotive needed. And that's what it got.

Most of the work was carried out with the airbrush. A weak mix of track colour was wafted on first. Once a paint cup of this had been used up the next one had a mix of earth colour in it. This was concentrated on the wheels and lower footplate to give the effect of dirt thrown up from the track.

The final cup was a track colour and dark grey mix which went on the top of the bonnets to simulate exhaust muck.

Finally some weathering powders in the crevices put in the ingrained dirt.

All I had to do then was glaze the windows with Krystal Klear. I still need to look at the windows in the noses as these should at least have a black background ideally have the train identification letters in there.

Oops

Now those of you know know the Class 14 diesel will have spotted my deliberate mistake. I didn't realise the error until fitting the roof and looking at prototype photos.

As any fule knos, a "Teddy Bear" locomotive has only one exhaust. I had fitted two.

For a moment I seriously thought of leaving the extra port in place and hoping no one noticed. That was too much deviation even for me though. The extra casting had to be removed. And without a complete repaint as well, there's no time for that.

Anyway, my lazy building efforts paid for for a change. The whitemetal castings were only soldered along the bottom edge and one side. Some great from the bit iron loosened the joins and forcing a scalpel down the back quickly flicked the offending part off.

Cleaning up took longer of course - the solder and leftover superglue from the non-soldered side had to be scraped clean. Then the horn cover was reattached in the correct place. A coat of primer showed I needed to feather the paint a bit more but a fibre pen sorted this out. Another prime and then some topcoat and varnish, carefully masking off the handrails and most importantly cab sides.

The result isn't bad apart from the satin varnish being a bit glossier than the rest of the the locomotive. Were the model to be finished as ex-works I'd have to re-paint. For a weathered look the dirt will hide any joins. I hope.

Painted Teddy

Painted 14
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

OK, I'll come clean. This blog is running slightly behind the times as far as the build on the Class 14 goes. If it wasn't then I wouldn't be able to bring you up to date with the painted body shell.

This work takes several days as the paint has to be left to harden between coats. The task runs something like this:

Day 1 - Paint the light green cab sides.
Day 2 - Mask the cab sides and spray the dark green bits.
Day 3 - Paint the yellow bits including the nose doors which are separate until the stripes are printed. Those stripes involve lots of pencil lines and constant fiddling until I am reasonably happy. Then they are stuck to the nose with superglue. Also paint the white bits with Humbrol 147 (pale grey) and silver windows surrounds. Then touch up the pale green bits around the window frames where the brush slipped.
Day 4 - Spray the whole loco with satin varnish.

So now you are nearly up to date. Nearly, the sharp eyed amongst you will have spotted one job I need to do. And I don't mean the cab roof.

Bodywork

Primered Class 14
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

The big bits of this loco were completed some time ago. Detailing took several hour though. There are a lot of handrails (which look wonkier in the photo than they really are) to fit including the incredible one around the top of the bonnets.

This one needed a bit more work than normal. I didn't have an etched part for this except for on on a completely new body etch sheet. It seemed a shame to break into this just for one strip so I made my own from sheet nickel silver. My skrawker quickly and neatly cut the part which is just under 2mm wide. That's possibly a touch too fat still but it looks OK and is strong enough to resist handling.

Teddy bear chassis

Class 14 chassis
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Getting the mechanical bits read for this loco was simple. I already had a chassis which rolled when pushed along the modelling boars so all I had to do was make up the motor & gearbox and pop them in - oh, and make up the crank axles too.

There's loads of space in the bonnets of this model and if I'd had to go and buy the bits for powering it, rather than using those to hand, I'd have been very tempted to stick a 2-stage box in. The model mustn't be geared down too much though. The prototype had a 40mph top speed so the model needs to be able to go faster than walking pace.

Class 14 pile

Class 14 pile
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

After the long stretch of Garratt making, time for what I hope will be a quick project. The pile of bits you see in the photo will hopefully become a Class 14 diesel soon. In time for Warley soon. That's by the end of the week.

Those with long memories or a copy of the Railway Modeller from a few months ago might remember that I've built one of these locos before as a test build for Mercian. The deal that time was that for my efforts I'd get another complete kit.

Well I actually have about one and a half kits since while last at Mercian HQ (a bunker 5 miles beneath the streets of Birmingham where world domination is planned, no not really) I nicked the part built model I assembled for the first test. The one the pattern maker borrowed to create the castings and that has sat on a shelf ever since because the kit was then re-etched in nickel silver.

I though I'd made a pretty decent job of my first go so I have taken the old model and a load of new bits to see if I can turn it into a finished product without starting from scratch with a new kit. Things look good so far as a scrub with Hob Brite has removed the worst of the tarnish from the metal. The wheels go round on the chassis too.

Actually, when I look back I built the previous Teddy Bear in a hurry for Warley last year. Deja-vu ?

Class 14 in the Modeller

September 2008 RM
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.

Pages 640 to 643 of the September Railway Modeller feature my article on building the Mercian Class 14. The editor has added some scale drawings and a few prototype photos which help bring the piece alive even more.

The rest of the issue's not bad either !