Thursday, August 18, 2011

Paint and loving the lining pen

Reassembly Pt3Before all this work, the little 48DS locomotive was a rather uninspiring black with rusty bits. My intention was to go all industrial and paint it green. Much prettier.

Humbrol 150, Forest Green, looked a good match for Jonathan Clay's lovely watercolour. Contrasting with the red buffer beams it looks fabulous. Industrial stuff was always painted green anyway so the colour is a bit of a no-brainer.

The problem was that Ruston lined out it's locos so I was going to have to give this a go. The job seemed more suited to the Bob Moore Lining pen than a bow pen. The former comes with spaces that attach to the nib allowing the line to follow edges. This took a bit of tweaking but once going I quickly seemed to be getting the hang of it.

Once most of the lines were in place I joined them up following a ruler, or even freehand. Corners were blobbed in.

The finishing touches were to tidy everything up with a small brush and green paint. Corners were rounded this way and wobbly lines straightened. This is the bit that we all assume professional painters don't do, all lines being perfect first time. Truth is they do fiddle and push paint around. Probably not as much as bodgers like me but it happens all the same.

Having dreaded doing this job I found myself getting quite into it. OK, the results are not perfect but they are good enough for me and that's what matters. As I always say, it's my toy train and I'll so that's all I care about.

(And yes it is wonky on the chassis. I need to sort this out next)

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