7mm US model dabblings

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Cheers chaps the nose radii came out better than it should but I played host to Capt'n cockup and his merry band with the nose light recess, the etched one I laid on the front and then filed to shape, due to the chamfer of the nose the face plate ended up too narrow, it should be 7mm I had 6mm, so off it came and a new one was soldered from the rear and the front sheets filed back....end result, face plate now too wide at 8mm!

The artwork on MkII has been slightly adjusted to compensate for this error but for this cab it'll either have to stay at 8mm wide or chances are I'll stick a 10 thou plasticard piece over the front and trim to suit, I'd like to have a NS overlay but I'm pretty sure the heat will make the existing piece just drop off, I still tend to be a little 'Victorian' with my soldering iron and heat LOL.

Other than that the nose went together really well, it sits a little low on the Atlas chassis due to a rebate for the plastic nose, so will come up a few mm in the final assembly.

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I still need to work out how to represent the handrail fixings, they're quite obvious on the real thing and even 4mm models have them, but as separate etchings they're going to be tiny and real handful to fit. I also need to work out how to make handrail stanchions as well, strong enough to withstand some knocks but fine enough to not look like cast iron lamp posts stuck to the sill beam!.
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Anyway, in between bouts of WD and 8F research; I've nearly finished the CAD art work for the next EMD project, namely the high nose or hook nose batch for Southern, Norfolk & Western and ultimately Norfolk & Southern.

Just a few small items to add, followed by some tweaking and cross checking some of the new parts with the existing artwork then it'll be off to PPD for etching:) For some reason I seem to have gained rather a lot of space in the art work:confused: which worries me that I've left off something rather important:eek:

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mickoo

Western Thunderer
Well just shy of two years since the US itch was scratched, but time to progress this for a while :thumbs:

A recent purchase of a Atlas MP15 has opened more cans of worms, I've been after one for a considerable time and this one I decided I was going to have, after loosing the other three I'd bid on by being too conservative in my bidding. After three years of looking I asked myself, did I really want one, yes, was I prepared to pay over the odds, yes, am I happy now I have it, very. The upside is I didn't have to invoke preference two :)

So the arrival of a new model opens a new chapter in the dark side, the primary aim was to use it to scale off for CAD etch work, which I will later on, but for the immediate future the current BNSF paint scheme had to go, it's a nice paint job from the factory, but not my cup of tea, not for MP15's anyway, GEVO's and Dash 9's yes but MP15's nope.

Not many MP15's were built and most have ended up with the usual suspects after mergers and the such like, additionally not all MP15s are alike, each Railroad specifying different fits and extras which still show through in later life. Essentially you have four Class 1 choices (Excluding BNSF), these being CSX, KCS, NS and UP. I like all three but choosing one is a bit more complex than just picking the one you like, the largest hurdle is decals, there's not as much choice in 1:48 as there is in 1:87 and what choices there are can be further limited to the small runs of decals that are about. I also did some research into colours, I have no aversion to spray cans until I can get back into airbrushing so the obvious choice is Halfords and some research finds that most colours required can be got in cans, though you may have to get them mixed to order.

Norfolk Southern,
Is an easy choice, gloss black but there are no decal sets available anywhere for the types carried on the MP15

KCS,
Again easy, mid grey, but again no ready decal sets available.

CSX,
I've opted for the modern yn3 style introduced in 2002, there are decal sets for this but currently out of print, browsing the web you end up with a couple of RGB values for the colours
Blue 24-7-104
Yellow 252-215-39

The yellow for UP could be used here but a lighter shade would be better
The blue is harder to find

UP,
The final choice and is yellow and grey and there are decal sets out there but you'll end up buying at least three sets to get everything you need.
Yellow 255-204-0
Grey 102-102-102, this varies over time and can be as dark as 134-134-134 (Floquil quote 118-124-124)

The grey is easy as it's almost the same as Halfords Plastic primer but you can get other shades, BS381 677 (104-109-116) and BS381 632 (104-110-113) will also do for the darker shade.
The yellow is listed as Fiat Golden Yellow BS381 677 (242-166-0) but you could use BS381 363 (248-187-0) these are both slightly darker than the official UP RGB but an undercoat of white might bring them down a shade or two.

Anyway, I popped into Halfords and just grabbed some cans that I though might look like they were close ;) all of these colours vary dramatically through fading and ambient lighting levels so close enough is good enough, though I am going to paint up some more cans with each colour next to each other to see how they stand next to each other as that's probably the only real way you'll get a good match.
IMG_8810.jpg

At the rear are the two colours I think will suit the UP choice, in the front the CSX with the slightly lighter yellow and I think the blue on the left might be the right shade, mind the flash is tending to lighten all the colours shown here.

The next step is to work out what to do with the existing paint on the model
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Cellulose thinners takes the numbers off easily as they are screen painted and not decals, it also removes a bit of the base colour as well, the original plastic is light grey and ideally I'd love to take all the paint off back to bare plastic so as to retain as much detail as possible, but, I'm not sure of the best way to do this. If it were brass I'd just drop it in a bucket of thinners and let it soak, but being plastic I've half a niggle that immersion in thinners may attack the plastic?

So having established a basic colour range it's onto the choice of locos and some notes.

First off Norfolk Southern
NS 2361.jpg

Easy paint scheme but no decals, stock kit will need some modifications, chopping back the roof brow over the cab front, new generator box cover (note later style with bevelled rear edge) and new roof fittings, in fact all choice will involve roof changes in one form or another. The rest is pretty much as per the donor engine.

KCS
wt1 - 3.jpg

Some changes required here, again the raised box generator housing but cab roof retains the front brow and a little roof work required, but up front there are enlarged sand boxs on the bonnet front. Quite a simple conversion as it's only the body that needs repainting, the already black frame being retained.

CSX
CSX 1147_2.jpg

Like Norfolk Southern really, cab roof brow cut back, twin roof AC units, raised generator housing but standard front sand boxes and in addition side window quarter lights blanked off. Side window blanking is hit and miss, some locos have them and many still retain the full set up. Like KCS an easier paint job with body only required.

UP
UPY 1330.jpg
Finally UP original roof brows but AC unit on top, original generator housing and larger front sand boxes, side window quarter lights blanked and all weather cupolas fitted. The only downside is a full loco repaint.

UP also do come with enlarged generator housings
UPY 1343.jpg

There are a few additional extras I'd like to add, the bonnet top radiators are at best facsimiles so they will be chopped out and new ones from plasticard and 'stuff' added in under the etched screen, I may open the front up to show the fan as well, 50/50 on that one, the rest of the body is pretty good, nothing too obvious to get hung up on.
On the chassis there's a noticeable gap behind the pilots so some dummy generic shaped drag boxes will go in there to block the light, as well as the two large tubular braces. Some extra pipework will be required and depending on choice of prototype I may have to add the (I think) engine oil retention tank ahead of the main fuel tank and I may also have to add the circular fuel gauge on the tank seen on some locos, a browse through the relevant parts catalogues should give any other extras I want to add.

Decals are going to be an issue which ever variant is chosen and I may have to 'roll my own' or get some especially printed from my art work

It's a shame I didn't see one of these last time I was in Florida as it's be a no brainer to model CSX, maybe this year I'll get more luck ;) I certainly have a more focused plan of what to photograph for modelling details, not just locos but stock, RoW and structures etc, I've now got a better idea of what I want in my layout, just need to tune/prune it a little, less is more....:thumbs:

Right, back to the bench for some paint colour swatch and paint stripping testing :thumbs:.

All above images copyright to original authors.
 
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mickoo

Western Thunderer
Cheers, will grab some pronto :thumbs:

Ok it's in the post, whats the best way to use this stuff, paint it on with a brush and wait, or simply dunk in a tin full of the stuff and come back in the morning?

Best, Mick
 
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Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
I only have a smallish container of the stuff, so I tend to brush it on if I can't fit the thing to be stripped in a jam jar. I use an old toothbrush, and apply the stripper from the jar. It doesn't take long to get to work, with a little elbow grease to help it along.

The great thing with the stuff is you can reuse it indefinitely. I let the jar settle, with a lid on, and if you want you can decant into a fresh jar.
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
I only have a smallish container of the stuff, so I tend to brush it on if I can't fit the thing to be stripped in a jam jar. I use an old toothbrush, and apply the stripper from the jar. It doesn't take long to get to work, with a little elbow grease to help it along.

The great thing with the stuff is you can reuse it indefinitely. I let the jar settle, with a lid on, and if you want you can decant into a fresh jar.

I've submerged it in a container. It does work a treat.

Cheers, now begins the great hunt for suitable jars :thumbs: I'd read it could be reused so nice tip about decanting it, used to do that with white spirits but you can only decant two or three times as it tends to loose it's cleaning attributes.

Best, Mick
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
It's grey Jim

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The paint stripper from Phoenix seems to work reasonably well, though there are some caveats, well in my case there was.

It seems the paint stripper works well but also attacks the plastic.....in a very very very mild form, which means that if you have left your part soaking then the parts that are clean will infuse the colour of the solution, and even a re-soaking in clean solution will not remove the colour taint, so the best thing to do is get it as clean as you can as fast as possible, then before it dries, run it through a cleaner rinse and then let it dry.

Second point, even the largest bottle from Phoenix...is not enough! I have a small bit of neat clean stuff left... and one jam jar of dirty solution settling for decanting at a later date, if your going to strip a big O gauge loco then bite the bullet and fork out for two bottles or ideally find an industrial source and buy in bulk.

Third point, cellulose thinners cleans the paint brilliantly...but! it also melts the plastic, I dropped the engine cover in neat cellulose thinner and in seconds started to see wisps of grey in the thinner as I brushed it around, not good and it's akin to bathing it in MEK, whipped it out and left to air dry and it's almost recoverable, what ever you do, handle as little as possible and don't even think about wiping the cellulose thinners off!

Still, after all that it's clean and ready for the next stage, removal of the bonnet top radiators, front vanes and adding a hump toward the rear, I've been reliably informed the hump encloses a paper filter system.

I'm still hand wringing over which RR to paint it in so decided to do a test run with the cans I have currently collected, so out came the trusty old GP38 etched cab and a quick blast in primer makes it ready for some top coats, in this case CSX blue and yellow. Now I think the yellow I have isn't orange enough and they do advise you spray over grey, so that's what I'll do, I will also procure another suitable test can ;) and spray it with red oxide colour primer and spray the yellow over that, that may give it a more orange tint to it.

The grey isn't a etch primer, just basic primer but it'll do for colour testing, in the end I suspect the whole cab will go back into cellulose stripper in the end anyway.

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I'm impressed with the grid etch detail and the small catches from the etch art work, but 0.25mm is too thin a material for future work, especially the way I mapped everything out.
I'm less impressed with my craftsmanship though, but two years down the line a lot of water has flowed under the bridge so MkII should fit, go together and look better I hope, I did notice as well that all the dust stuck to the model and not the cardboard I was spraying on :eek:
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
What rattle-can colors are you using for CSX Blue & Yellow, Mick?
Can't remember the blues so will check tonight and edit this reply, but the yellows are Fiat Broom Yellow and Rover Inca Yellow.

The Inca Yellow has a warmer bias (tending toward orange) so might just do for the latest YN3 scheme; I might have to apply a red undercoat to help it along though.

The Broom Yellow is lighter and may well do for the previous YN2 scheme. Near the top of my wish list is a AC60CW that I saw in Florida in this scheme but with the yellow inset to the CSX bodyside logos and lightning bolts.

The other yellow recommended for Union Pacific is Fiat Golden Yellow, I've not got a sample of that yet as I'm almost certainly hedging toward a loco with black underframe to save myself some work, especially as it's already been lightly weathered.

I've also found that CSX 1142 has large roof overhangs which removes one of the modifications I'd have to do.

Back later with the blue colours :thumbs:

Ok the blue colours, the darker of the two is Ford Isis Bkue which should do the YN3 scheme and the lighter is Vauxhall Regatta Blue which may well do for a factory fresh YN2 scheme, for a faded scheme....which seems de-rigour for YN2 you'd have to weather or pick a lighter blue I think.

I checked the Fiat Golden Yellow and it looks to be between the two Yellows mentioned above, so Inca Yellow should do for Union Pacific as well.

Hope that helps.
 
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Heather Kay

Western Thunderer
Your experience with the Phoenix stripper is understandable. While it's more laborious, I use the toothbrush method because I haven't enough stripper to dunk anything larger than parts in.

It might be harder to get into nooks and crannies, but I am still using the same jamjar of fluid I started with over a year ago!
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Heather, likewise, I had a small plastic microwave bowl just large enough to lay one side or end of the cab module in and be fully submerged. I left it like that for a few minutes and then encouraged the paint to leave the model with a 1/2" paint brush. The bonnet took longer and as a result I reckon a good third of the solution just simply evapourated!
 

Big Train James

Western Thunderer
It just seems like a shame to have this sitting here without any purpose for it.:( I only need the frame and below from this loco.mp15dc.jpg

By the way, a common paint stripper in the states is 91% isopropyl alcohol. I have no idea if such a thing is available in the UK. One can buy it off the shelf at the corner drugstore here. Inexpensive and plentiful. Occasionally a toothbrush may need to be worked into the nooks and crevices. But it will take paint off most models without damaging the plastic. A notable exception being Kato models. Apparently they use a paint or "ink" that is much more difficult to remove.
 
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mickoo

Western Thunderer
Right, quick and dirty blast with the spray cans this evening, couple of issues.....I need to keep practising on old scrap cans, I need to find a better form of masking tape, the blue low tack scotch tape is a bit thick and leaves a ridge between colours, no matter how light you are with the application, finally, need to find some new colours.

IMG_7552a.JPG

In this shot the nose looks quite a warm yellow, but inside it's quite lemon in colour really.

IMG_7559a.JPG

On the left a test can with a red oxide primer under the same colour yellow, part of the orange tint is from the reflection on the paper towel, but it is noticeably warmer in tone.

The blue is very blue and if I didn't have any reference photos would pass it as muster, but I do have reference photos sadly!

Having looked at hundreds of CSX images lately, it's clear that the colours change tone with the weather, under dull conditions the blue is quite dark
CSX 2627a.JPG

CSX 6073h.JPG

Yet in brighter conditions is lighter....obvious really!
CSX 4311c.JPG

However this second photo was taken seconds apart and the camera has obviously altered the white balance and as such all the colours are much lighter.
CSX 4311b.JPG

The yellow nose also changes tone dramatically in the above images and only really comes close to the spray can versions I currently have in the last photo.

It has been suggested that Fiat Golden Yellow is suitable for Union Pacific, in Halfords it looks less orange than the one shown here, though can lid colours can be misleading, so I think I'll have to get a can and see if it has more warmth to it with a test spray. Either way, what I have here is not suitable for Union Pacific, even with a red undercoat......suddenly Norfolk Southern all over black is looking very appealing!

Up 1949_06.jpg

All of the above CSX are YN3 (Dark Future) schemes and as mentioned earlier I'm looking at a CW60AC at some point in YN2 (Bright Future) scheme, though the CW60AC were unique and are listed as YN2b I believe, differing in the body side logo having a yellow insert and double lightning flashes. For completeness, 'YN' stands for Yellow Nose scheme.

CSX 0684i.JPG

The middle loco has standard YN2 scheme, aka solid blue logos and one lightning flash, the trailing one YN3b or 'Box Car' as it's often called.

The yellow is much lighter and the blue seems lighter as well and the yellow I have with a red undercoat might just pass muster for the front of this scheme.

Looking at the BS381 charts http://www.e-paint.co.uk/BS381 Colourchart.asp

I suspect the yellow I need is Bold Yellow (363) but the blue is another matter Azure Blue (104) or Middle Blue (109) might do, both look wrong on the site above but on the site below look a closer match.

http://www.paragonpaints.co.uk/BS381C-Colours.html

I've ran the images through PSP to get a average RGB for the side shot of CSX 4311, which I think is probably the best image to work from, and arrived at 34-86-134 and (109) so far is the closest to that.

So, more cans from Halfords tomorrow then ;)

A can of Fiat Golden Yellow for starters, if that's not orange enough then I'll get a can made up to the BS381 spec of Golden Yellow, following that, a perusal of their mid range blues.
 
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richard carr

Western Thunderer
Mick

I have to say that looking at you photos the yellow seems ok, it's the blue that is too dark compared to the photos.

Now the problem with colour is knowing what you are looking at. My screen is calibrated with a Spyder 4 and using custom ICC profiles most of my prints from my printer match my screen. But to add to the complications I'm a bit brown/green colour blind, I have jacket that to me is brown but to everyone else I know its dark green !

So are you comparing like with like, is you screen properly calibrated, if it isn't there is no point in comparing your photos the what your paint results look like.

Richard
 

oldravendale

Western Thunderer
Hi Mick.

You're on a hiding to nothing trying to colour match. Professionally the colour of the lighting is at least as important as the pigments used - in fact in the motion picture business with which I had a lifetime of experience the colour of studio and projector light sources was specified so that precise colour matches could be made. As an extreme example "day for night" was shot normally in daylight, or perhaps a couple of stops under exposed, and then darkened and made more blue in post production (although some would say that such processes were not entirely convincing). All the laboratories employed skilled and highly paid people who's job was to match colour scene to scene, particularly for film shot in daylight which can vary widely in colour - really what comes down to a standardisation process.

By the time you add in fading/bleaching of prototype railway colours due to sunlight and in the olden days varnishes I really believe that it's a case of "if it looks right it is right". But, having said all this I'm in awe of the efforts made to get things as right as possible.

Brian
 
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