bentwaters81tfw Posted March 23, 2018 Share Posted March 23, 2018 Hi Hendie. Just watched your Pullman car on a charter train leaving Crewe for Kingussie. Very smart. Can't wait for your next instalment. I have access to cameras around the UK and US. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted March 30, 2018 Author Share Posted March 30, 2018 On 3/23/2018 at 7:32 AM, bentwaters81tfw said: Just watched your Pullman car on a charter train leaving Crewe for Kingussie Well, color me jealous ! If you have any photo's I'd love to see them. Now this post will probably seem almost insignificant for many folks, but for me this is a major milestone. We have color on the side frames. Color that I'm not going to have to take off again! It's not perfect by any means but it's a good start. I have been so afraid of ruining this paint job that I've been actively avoiding it for far too long. I decided a couple of weeks ago that I MUST tackle this one head on and keep going until I beat it into submission one way or the other. I reckon part of my problem has been rushing the job, and probably poor preparation. - and some poor materials. I don't think I'm ever going to use Humbrol again - I took a look inside my can of enamel thinners to find large chunks of rust floating in it - thanks Humbrol! This time around I made sure I took my time and after some experimentation found a good ratio for my paint mix (with some new thinners). This time I opted to decant the paint and airbrush it instead of using the rattle can. It might seem the obvious way to go but I can be remarkably dense at times! Got a decent spray pressure and all that and also made sure I wasn't going to get called away half way through the job. Those numbers are all documented so I won't forget them in subsequent sessions. A few dust particles got on the surface, ( these are too big for my spray booth) but a mild micro mesh should take care of any imperfections and leave it ready for another coat. I tried to capture the finish but the camera hasn't picked it up. I'm going to let that enamel cure overnight - or should I leave it 48 hours ? before prepping the surface with micro mesh again. Hopefully another coat will be enough As I said earlier in the post - pretty boring stuff for most folks, but a significant moment for me. 7 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larchiefeng Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 Enamel takes a while to gas out and is soft underneath the surface. I would wait at least 48 hours and then be careful with the micro mesh. I waited a few days between coats on the metal body of the F40. I think it took all summer to get the paint done. Enamel gives a good finish but, takes a lot longer between coats for sanding. Since you have other things going you can afford to wait a while between coats, just be patient. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bentwaters81tfw Posted March 30, 2018 Share Posted March 30, 2018 PM sent 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted March 31, 2018 Author Share Posted March 31, 2018 1 hour ago, larchiefeng said: Enamel takes a while to gas out and is soft underneath the surface. I would wait at least 48 hours and then be careful with the micro mesh. I waited a few days between coats on the metal body of the F40. I think it took all summer to get the paint done. Enamel gives a good finish but, takes a lot longer between coats for sanding. Since you have other things going you can afford to wait a while between coats, just be patient. Thanks for that. I'm in no real rush so 48 hours minimum it is. I've already stripped back to the brass about three times and am determined that this will be the final paint job Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larchiefeng Posted March 31, 2018 Share Posted March 31, 2018 Go slow and steady then and don't get too aggressive with the micro mesh. I would go as lightly as possible only on the dust specks and then shoot another light to medium coat of enamel and build up a few coats. Then put it aside for a week or two and then come back to it and slowly and lightly wet sand it with something like 1000-600 grit sanding pad or paper. Start with a grit that may or may not remove much; you can always use something more aggressive but, you can't undo it the other way without a lot of extra work. My experience with enamel on metal is that, it will chip if you aren't careful. I shot about 4-5 color coats of enamel on my Ferrari and I waited about 2-3 weeks and then I decided to shoot 2-3 clear enamel over the black. I did do some color sanding on the black and only lightly wet sanded the clear so I didn't burn through the clear. I used the black enamel on my plastic body Pocher Mercedes and it was also a marathon process but the metal die cast body of Pocher F40 was a whole different animal with the enamel. Bottom line is, just be careful sanding and handling the metal and don't rush it. I have chipped the paint more than once during the process with the Ferrari. I don't want to see you make the same mistakes I made not knowing how the enamel would react on metal. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perdu Posted March 31, 2018 Share Posted March 31, 2018 Lots of great advice here for you H, boy its good to see you taking this back up I'd be considering adding extra curing time too, I (brush) painted an Airfix Austin Healey Sprite about thirty years ago and there is still a 'feel' to the surface that puts me off polishing and finishing it Sprayed on though you should be OK with a flour papery abrasive Really chuffed to see it ongoing again ☺ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete in Lincs Posted April 2, 2018 Share Posted April 2, 2018 Me too. Progress. Yahoo! (BTW, it's colour) (just saying) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandy Posted April 2, 2018 Share Posted April 2, 2018 Great to see some progress on this one, but in no hurry to see it spoilt. Patience! Ian 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted April 3, 2018 Share Posted April 3, 2018 Quote I don't think I'm ever going to use Humbrol again Me neither unless I have to absolutely have to. Sadly there are much better paints available now. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichO Posted April 3, 2018 Share Posted April 3, 2018 Great advice going on here Hendi, still watching how this works out for you. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted April 8, 2018 Author Share Posted April 8, 2018 All advice taken on board and acted upon. I waited over a week before I sanded back the last coat. This afternoon I gave the side frames another coat and will leave that for another week before sanding back. There's no point in showing a photo of that - it looks exactly the same as it did last time. While the airbrush was seeing action I also sprayed the two vestibule ends. The paint went on very weirdly indeed - which is strange considering I used exactly the same method/mix that I used for the side-frames. What I didn't like though was the fact that the styrene showed up lots of faults, mainly sinks where glue has been applied on the rear face. I'm not going to throw these away just yet, but I am thinking of alternate methods of manufacture. Particularly in brass. I always avoided making these end frames in brass as I didn't think I would be able to make a decent enough job of cutting out the windows and gangway. However, with my recent success in photo-etching, I am going to seriously consider etching the frames - if I can manage a good way to create the folds. More to come on this later.... once I have figured it out. I had some success in other areas though. I am determined not to let this build fall by the wayside so looked at other areas to see what I could be doing. Door closers seemed like a good idea -why not? We had to fit automatic door closers due to fire regulations. I'm not sure if the original coach had them but we had to fit them regardless. Thankfully there are still vintage looking items being manufactured so we chose to go with a YALE door closer. Starting with some brass rod, I drilled some holes through a section of rod - trying to get them as central as I could. Once the holes were drilled, I chucked the rod up in the lathe and turned the ends. Sections of tube were inserted through the rod and soldered into place. Still some clean up required here! Of course I didn't have the correct diameter rod to fit through the tube so that had to be drilled out. The tube was also cut down in width. Looking at this I almost wonder why I bothered adding the tube But once the hole was drilled through the tube, I could insert another length of rod, and fit a small nut on each side. This is the three stages of fitting the nuts. Once the assembly is together, the excess rod is snipped off, leaving a small section for me to file down. Since I didn't have any brass nuts - these are steel so I couldn't solder them - I used superglue to hold them in place. Then filing the rod down created a burr which acted to hold the nuts in place (I don't trust super glue!) A larger diameter tube was then placed on top of the assembly, which was in turn, soldered into place, then all the bits that didn't look like Yale door closer were filed off. And here we have the finished item - well, without the stays of course. All three have now been completed though I have a feeling they may be just a tad on the large side. I won't really know until I have doors in place to fit them to. A touch more filing may be required to knock the size down a bit - we'll see when the time comes. These will now go in to a safe place until the time comes to paint and fit them 8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larchiefeng Posted April 9, 2018 Share Posted April 9, 2018 (edited) Before, you decide to start making new end caps for the car, you might think about sanding paint down where you have the deformed area caused by the glue on the styrene. Then, do a light skim coat of Bondo over the entire flat area where it shows through. I like using Bondo 801 and go a bit easier on the hardener than called for. Mix it so, it's a light pink in color. This will give you a longer working time before it hardens. The Bondo will not shrink or crack like Squadron or other putties do over time. Doing the skim coat and sanding it, once or twice would probably be easier and faster than fabricating two new end caps. Other than the reaction of the glue on the plastic these really look good. It's just a thought and a way to try and salvage them before making new ones. Edited April 9, 2018 by larchiefeng 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CedB Posted April 9, 2018 Share Posted April 9, 2018 Great work on the closers Hendie - they look spot on and I hope they're a suitable size after all that work. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perdu Posted April 10, 2018 Share Posted April 10, 2018 Agreeing with larchiefeng here H, the shapes look good so it would be a pity to wreck it, just because... If Bondo proper was easily available here I can think of a few projects I'd use it on too Cracked up gel coat on my Midget's fi-glass bonnet for a start The door closers, blooming magicalike Wow 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted April 10, 2018 Share Posted April 10, 2018 Marvellous micro engineering on the door closers. Steel can be soldered but admittedly it doesn't work very well so gluing was probably the best way to go. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted April 14, 2018 Author Share Posted April 14, 2018 well this kind of sucks like a big sucky thing on a stick dunnit? Postimage has gone awol and no news on whether it will be back as an ORG or stay as a CC I'm hesitant to start uploading photo's to the new site if they are going to change back sometime soon. I've even more hesitant to go site hunting for a new host. Short story then.... still working away but photo's will have to wait until a resolution is forthcoming 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spaddad Posted April 14, 2018 Share Posted April 14, 2018 These photo hosting sites are something, bl**dy pain in the a**e 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larchiefeng Posted April 14, 2018 Share Posted April 14, 2018 Codger said that Postimage has posted a work around 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted April 14, 2018 Author Share Posted April 14, 2018 there is a workaround - replace all the '.org' in the photo's with '.cc' However, some of my photo's are still showing up - so I don't know if they are doing anything in the background to automate that change. They also haven't stated if the change from .org to .cc is temporary or permanent. With all that going on I'm hesitant to upload a bunch of photo's if they're going to be defunct in another month or so. So frustrating 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
larchiefeng Posted April 15, 2018 Share Posted April 15, 2018 After the whole photo bucket debacle I decided that I wasn't going to let that happen to me again. I set up a blog and I still use Postimage or another service to just resize my pictures to 480 x 640 and then I save the smaller format pictures to another file on my computer. From there I just upload whatever pictures I want to my blog. When I post to my thread I just copy the link from my blog to the thread. This way if something happens to the photo hosting site nothing happens to my pictures. It takes an extra step or two but, worth it. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bandsaw Steve Posted April 15, 2018 Share Posted April 15, 2018 What a total PITA! I feel your pain Hendie. Hope this gets sorted soon. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perdu Posted April 15, 2018 Share Posted April 15, 2018 I'm confident they will be OK soon I have not reposted any of my pictures with new suffixes Just lose your references to the .org version, ditch your bookmarks Then Google postimg.cc and enter and insert your password Lo, and behold I did that and found myself back in post image with all my pictures and albums back in place I had a few errant images last week but they got better I'm going to give them til Wednesday before I panic and start looking at imgur or summat 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted April 15, 2018 Author Share Posted April 15, 2018 All my images are there Bill, unfortunately they're just not here! I'm going to give it another week or so and then make a decision one way or t'other 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perdu Posted April 18, 2018 Share Posted April 18, 2018 You will probably be aware that Mike is on the case and has asked Invision to look into returning the pictures to the new .cc site Fingers crossed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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