[Madkitten]

Hiya,

Thought i would share with you my latest little side project which i was doing whilst i wait for orders to turn up!!

I wanted a restored Autocoach for my modern image layout and after seeing on a railway website a red / cream one decided to copy it in OO.

Anyway, I started with the Hornby Autocoach in Maroon which i frankly thought was a bit dated and old looking

. I stripped it and sanded it down with extremley fine wet and dry before washing and scrubbing the plastic shell. I also removed a lot of detail at this point and stripped the bogies and the chassis.

I still have work to do on it which i will post as i do complete it. I cut off the steps ( completly oversize )

and all the handrail forms that were on the plastic body.

It was then resprayed with Halfords grey car primer and masked up for respray. I sprayed it in red and cream ( halfords car paints ) and lined and numbered it using pressfix. I then my attention to the interior and painted it in BR colours. I placed a few hornby people in it just to give it some life. It will have working lights soon but i have still to decide if i like the white roof or if i want to make it grey as some real ones have both.

Anyway here are the first piccys for you all to look at !!!!

Arrrgggh - ive just noticed that the letters are slightly steped on one side so i will have to rub that back and re letter!!! Apart from that i have to make the chassis steps and the handrails and add the piping and under chassis link for the steam engine - The model will then be fitted with three link screw couplings and as soon as i have found a hornby 14xx will be coupled with it ( after it has been updated to an autofitted locomotive ).

Hope you all find this interesting !!

Regards

Nikki ...........................................

 

[dwb]

Very nice

QUOTE Arrrgggh - ive just noticed that the letters are slightly steped

That's photos for you

David

 

[34030 Watersmeet]

Very impressive paint finish, and detailing, tempted me to dig out my old Airfix auto coach, also in maroon - the red and cream livery seems to suit it.

Can I ask, what particular colour Halfords acrylic spray paints did you use for red and cream? I've used their paints for locos (I was recommended Rover Brooklands Green for BR green and Vauxhall Burgandy red for BR maroon) which gave a good finish. However, authentic coach colours would be very useful. I've also found Halfords matt black to be very useful for chassis etc.

Thanks,
Bill

 

[Madkitten]

I got my Husband to look the colours up for me as he is very good at finding the exact pigment colours .... and then matching them to halfords colours

LMS Crimson Lake - Vauxhall Carmine Red
BR Blood - Voltswagon Mars Red
BR Cream - Lada Cream

To get the slightly rusty finish on the chassis i dry brush black with brown acrylic paint!!!!

Hope this helps !!!

Nikki !!

 

[34030 Watersmeet]

Thanks Nikki. That's excellent advice, just what I need for a couple of coach projects, shows how useful this forum is! I'll set off for Halfords this weekend. Amazing they still do paints for Ladas

I've had better results on larger objects (like loco boilers) with the spray cans - they seem to give a more consistant coverage than my little airbrush but that's just me of course. (And you don't have to clean them after use).

Thanks again,

Bill

 

[Madkitten]

I prefer spray cans as the halfords car ones have a finer spray than the model spray paints have !! As far as airbrushes go i have a decent airbrush and hardley ever use it except for spraying up track after i have fitted it to the base board..... this way you can get a decent finish across the points / track etc with all the sleepers the same colour !!!!!

Please send me some piccys when you have done yours id love to see other peoples work!!

Might also be a god idea to post up a list of colours and the closest halfords colours !! maybe they should do a british railways range too !!!! seems to be a lot of model makers using them now!! We even are thinking of seeing if we can stock them in our model shop!

Hope your project goes well

Nikki

 

[alastairq]

excellent work

such a pity Halfords don't use the sort of imaginative colour names as Games Workshop's?

 

[34030 Watersmeet]

Thanks for that.
Other suggestions I've seen (from article in "Gauge O Guild magazine" 2000) are as follows.

GWR cream Ford Sahara Beige
GWR Brown (chocolate) Triumph Maple Talbot Café Noir
Southern Green Ford Laurel Green
LNER green Nissan Leaf Green
Prototype Deltic blue Lada Adriatic Blue
Bauxite red primer

The 2 I've actually used are:
BR maroon Vauxhall Burgundy red (also suggested Ford Burgundy red)
BR green Rover Brooklands Green (also suggested Land Rover Bronze green)

These gave a good finish, I agree with you that the paint spray is very fine, presumably to give a very smooth finish when retouching car paintwork.

I've normally used Railmatch paints (very good for brushing) or Precision paints plus some now rather old Humbrol rail colour tins that seem to have lasted well. However the car sprays appear to have a lot of potential if the colour is right. Also, I've used the grey primer a lot as a base coat over complete models. Worth more experimentation.

Bill

 

[34030 Watersmeet]

Re Games Workshop type paint names, perhaps they could start with blood and custard......

regards,

Bill

 

[alastairq]

would the above, be a Vauxhall colour, or Ford?

 

[alanb]

On the Hornby website, there is a section marked 'Humbrol Rail Colours'

There is a good selection of colours for train painting.

AlanB

 

[alastairq]

Humbrol's rail colours are as old as the hills......and I believe the tints concerned have long since been improvedupon, by the likes of Railmatch, etc....

 

[34030 Watersmeet]

Blood and custard has to be vauxhall.

Seriously, I think railmatch are very good, paint goes on nicely.
Re Games Workshop, I've seen their "metal" paints recommended for use on model aircraft as they are apparently good for different types of bare metal. Also leather (luggage, leather seats, straps etc.) and flesh tones (if you avoid ones for monsters!)

Going back to the original autocoach model, my maroon one (as out of the box) is painted in a very similar shade to Vauxhall burgandy red.

Bill

 

[leicester thumper]

the spray paints are very mush good for anything from halfords'....

my dad uses them to repaint jis old Raleigh mopeds and the like. i agree with Nikki's LMS Crimson Lake colour, used it before, and it's darn good!