Beer and Buckjumpers

Steve Carter
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Re: Beer and Buckjumpers

Postby Steve Carter » Sat Feb 13, 2021 9:46 am

Terry Bendall wrote: It was however 60 years old so I have had good value.

That's the problem with a lot of manufactured things these days, they just don't last like they used to! :lol:
Steve Carter

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Paul Willis
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Smoke fairies (not the band)

Postby Paul Willis » Sat Feb 13, 2021 11:15 pm

Serjt-Dave wrote:Oh dear indeed Paul. Look on the bright side. At least there were no flames!

I hope you get your issue sorted.


Thanks Dave. Fortunately, it's wasn't too difficult to track down and solve.

Taking the lid off my home made controller box shows this. Small transformer, lots of space around it, outputs on the opposite side with wires connecting them:

Transformer smoke (1).JPG


The problem was this wire here, which had flexed too much and fractured. The puff of smoke was the 240v main input arcing across broken wires.

Transformer smoke (2).JPG


The transformer lives in a box when not needed. I only usually have it out when I'm testing stuff. So the lead gets a lot of being bent over and wiggled around to get it in and out. Anyway, it was a quick fix to trim a couple of centimetres off the end of the lead, and solder the two new clean exposed wires back on to the terminals. All sorted in a few minutes, and then it was back on testing duty:

Transformer smoke (3).JPG


Cheers
Paul
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Serjt-Dave
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Re: Beer and Buckjumpers

Postby Serjt-Dave » Sun Feb 14, 2021 8:58 am

Hi Paul. I'm glad it's all sorted and easily fixed. I've still got to go back to my control panel and fix a MERG booster panel I made last year.

All Best and Keep Safe

Dave

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Re: Beer and Buckjumpers

Postby Terry Bendall » Sun Feb 14, 2021 9:19 am

Paul Willis wrote:The problem was this wire here, which had flexed too much and fractured.


The solution is to make up some sort of clamp to hold the mains cable so that it does not flex. Possible ways of doing this are to:

(a) use the flex clamping strip from a standard 13 amp plug held in place with two small nuts and bolts. If I have a broken plug I usually save the clamp strip for just such jobs.
(b) use a strip of metal in the same way but round off the edges so that it does not cut into the cable covering.
(c) use a strip of suitable plastic to do the same job.
(d) find a plastic cable clip of an appropriate size - the type used to hold cable to a wall or similar. Remove the masonry nail and drill out the hole to take a small bolt.

In Paul's example the size of the box means that there is not a lot of room to do this. Using some tubular spaces to space the transformer away from the side of the box might work. Alternatively use the spacers but bring the mains lead in from the side. Another alternative would be to bend the cable outside of the box and put the clamp on the outside.

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Will L
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Re: Beer and Buckjumpers

Postby Will L » Sun Feb 14, 2021 11:48 am

I couldn't help wondering, as your transform bolts through your case (which is presumably plastic?) with the blots showing outside, shouldn't you you be earthing the transformer frame, as well as making sure the mains lead is securely clamped?

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Re: Beer and Buckjumpers

Postby Paul Willis » Sun Feb 14, 2021 11:51 am

Terry Bendall wrote:
Paul Willis wrote:The problem was this wire here, which had flexed too much and fractured.


The solution is to make up some sort of clamp to hold the mains cable so that it does not flex. Possible ways of doing this are to:

(a) use the flex clamping strip from a standard 13 amp plug held in place with two small nuts and bolts. If I have a broken plug I usually save the clamp strip for just such jobs.
(b) use a strip of metal in the same way but round off the edges so that it does not cut into the cable covering.
(c) use a strip of suitable plastic to do the same job.
(d) find a plastic cable clip of an appropriate size - the type used to hold cable to a wall or similar. Remove the masonry nail and drill out the hole to take a small bolt.

In Paul's example the size of the box means that there is not a lot of room to do this. Using some tubular spaces to space the transformer away from the side of the box might work. Alternatively use the spacers but bring the mains lead in from the side. Another alternative would be to bend the cable outside of the box and put the clamp on the outside.


Fantastic advice from Terry, as always. I am, of course, going to totally ignore it ;-)

Given that this transformer gets very occasional use for testing, I'll just live with the need to occasionally repair it. I had to do that once when I dropped it, and the weight of the transformer coil tore the bolt fixing it out of the side of the plastic box, necessitating a patch repair.

I never leave it plugged in and unattended, and I have the utmost respect for mains electricity, so I'm not going to push the boundaries of sophistication. One thing that I did think of is whipping out my hot glue gun and running a bead around the outside of the hole, to make an impromptu grommet. I may still do that as a quick fix...

Cheers
Paul
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Re: Beer and Buckjumpers

Postby Paul Willis » Sun Feb 14, 2021 11:52 am

Will L wrote:I couldn't help wondering, as your transform bolts through your case (which is presumably plastic?) with the blots showing outside, shouldn't you you be earthing the transformer frame, as well as making sure the mains lead is securely clamped?


Yes, and yes. But also I probably shouldn't ride powerful motorbikes at three-figure speeds[1], but I still do that!

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Paul

[1] Naturally, only where the relevant law permits <ahem>
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Missenden Redux...

Postby Paul Willis » Sun Oct 10, 2021 9:38 pm

Earlier this evening I arrived back home after a superb return to Missenden Abbey for the Autumn Modellers' Weekend.

This was a return in two different ways:

- for the Missenden courses themselves, as this was the first post-Pandemic event. It seemed a very long time since attendees gathered for the weekend that started on 6 March 2020, and just preceded the first UK lockdown. There were a few of the early precautions against Covid in place then, and we picked up again with different ones this weekend, in the light of 18 months of painful experience. The Abbey was still as beautiful as ever:

Missenden Abbey.JPG


- it was also the first modelling I've done for around five months. It was late spring when all of my modelling kit went into packing boxes whilst we moved house from Hertfordshire to North Somerset. In that time, my kit (and kits) were kept safe in storage units, awaiting the opportunity to unpack them again. As we completed on our house purchase only ten days ago, I grabbed a selection of likely boxes, and hoped that the content would make a good weekend.

I need not have worried - no matter what models I took along, the weekend was filled with great company, old friends, and a little bit of musicianship...

As usual these days, I was in group of "4mm and smaller scales locomotive building". A baker's dozen of us set up tool boxes, soldering irons, lamps, and all the usual detritus of modelling:

4mm 1.JPG


4mm 2.JPG


There were a couple of newcomers in the group and many familiar faces. It was good to see Mark Tatlow again, whose workbench revealed that he was making good progress with his P4 model of Dai Woodham's Barry Scrapyard:

Tatty Scrap.JPG


He also won the chocolate frog award for the best-appointed workbench. Rather than the usual anglepoise or clip-on Ikea form of illumination that the rest of us relied on, Mark had been consulting the latest interior design magazines. Not content with moving house this summer, he also decided to bring a little classy ambience from the likes of Heals furniture store to shed a little light on his modelling:

Tattl lamp.JPG


We also had a couple of great tutors in Tony Gee, who brought along a range of superb models he is working on in scales from 7mm, through "Manchester Standard" EM, to 2mm FS:

Tony Gee.JPG


And holding court at the other end of the room, fresh from editing a superb issue of MRJ, was S&D and North Somerset miniaturist Jerry Clifford:

Jerry Clifford.JPG


Just out of shot is Jerry's guitar, which he entertained us with at various points as well. Who said railway modellers don't do art and culture?

There was the usual range of demonstrations, including for the first time a session on the manufacture and use of AJ couplings. This was given by Karl Crowther (tutor of the "Improving RTR rolling stock" group) and was so popular that it had to be split into two sessions. This is the one that I dropped in on:

Karl Crowther Aj.JPG


As for what I did, well that was reopening the box of my GER T26 "Intermediate" locomotive build, for the first time in quite a few months, if not years. As someone pointed out, the brass had gone rather tarnished!

More on that to follow, on the T26's own topic.

So thanks again to all who made it such a fun weekend, and if you haven't been to Missenden yet, the bookings for the Spring 2022 Weekend will be opening soon...

Cheers
Paul
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Back to modelling...

Postby Paul Willis » Tue Dec 21, 2021 10:16 pm

Finally, I feel that I'm in a place to start modelling again :-)

Apart from a superb weekend away at Missenden in October, it's been over six months since I have had the time and the ability to engage in any modelling.

It was back at the end of April that the stars aligned for me and my wife. The imminent ending of my working commitment to London due to taking voluntary redundancy combined with an ideal house becoming available in a village on the opposite side of the country. So we talked, and decided to up sticks and move from the south east to the south west. In the frantic housing market leading up to the end of the stamp duty holiday, our house took literally a couple of days to sell. That meant that by the end of June, we had to be out of our home!

All my modelling stuff had been packed away prior to selling the house, to make it tidier, and to get us ready for the move. We knew that because of timings of sale and purchase, we would be putting our stuff into storage for a few weeks, and then moving into our desired house. No problem, everything was labelled, and it would only be a short time. And then that house purchase fell through. By this time we were living in a one bedroom former AirBnB annex of friends of a friend in our dream village. So we hunted, and found a second house and after having an offer accepted, started the purchase process all over again. And then that house fell through...

Fortunately, we then found a third house, and it all fell into place, although not without some nervous moments along the way! We completed the purchase at the end of September, and since then we've been repatriating our belongings from storage units and friends' garages, unpacking, and buying bits of furniture that work in our new home. One of the advantages of this house is that the previous owners converted the internal single garage into a "snug" for use as a home office. All properly insulated, and with a plentiful supply of electrical sockets. Warm, secure, and spacious.
Which means that it is perfect to become my railway room...

For workbenches, to make the best use of the space, a couple of big white Ikea tables were purchased. Various other drawers, cupboards and even a leather sofa were co-opted as they wouldn't fit elsewhere in the house, and I could repurpose them for modelling and by library of railway books. The whole thing has worked out rather smartly, taking the idea of a "kitchen triangle" to keep areas like soldering and painting separate:

Railway room (1).JPG


Railway room (2).JPG


Sadly, it means that after many years of sterling service, my trusty modelling bureau is heading for an appointment with the electric saw and a short trip to the local recycling centre. It worked well when I only had limited space to play with, but now I have the ability to leave things out to work on them from day to day.

Bureau 08.JPG


First, I have to see what the state is of the various projects that went into storage...

Cheers
Paul
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Re: Beer and Buckjumpers

Postby Paul Willis » Wed Dec 22, 2021 5:05 pm

When I last posted about my E22 Buckjumper, it was back in March 2020 and we were just going into lockdown...

That announced that the model was finished, and I'd post one or two more words on it when I had a moment. I appear to have forgotten that! As an aide memoire, the last thing that I said was...

https://www.scalefour.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=6821&start=775#p73408

And the last posted image of it, in basic paintwork was here: https://www.scalefour.org/forum/download/file.php?id=14808&mode=view

In completing the story, there are one or two things that I can touch on. The first is getting some weight into the model. Whilst I'm not of the school of though to add weight until a model bends the rails, I do find that getting a reasonable amount in the model will help both roadholding and pick-up.

Most of my models built in the last few years have been small and made from etched brass. This has both negatives (not much space, and the material itself is light, compared to whitemetal) and positives. Amongst the positives is that etched brass doesn't melt very easily. This is particularly useful if you want to fill part of the body up with molten lead...

In this case, what I wanted to do was to fill up all of that lovely empty space in the sidetanks, directly above the coupled wheelbase, with weight. So the first thing to do was to gain access to the space. Of course, it would have been sensible to have prepared this before assembling the body. However that would require thinking several steps ahead of where I am now. I don't do that very well, which is why I'm a railway modeller, and not a chess player. So the first thing that I had to do was to use a slitting disc in a dremel to cut an access slot.

Lead tanks 1.JPG


Once I'd cut some slots, I was able to lift this flap of metal out of the way. That gave enough space to introduce my soldering iron into the space.

Lead tanks 2.JPG


Fitted with the fattest bit and at maximum temperature, I could then use a big stick of low melt solder (this came from Hobby Holidays - the best value that I could find without taking a chance on the indeterminate quality of plumbers' solder) to flow solder inside each tank.

Lead tanks 3.JPG


The solder flows well, into the corners of the tank, and you can fill the space up to the maximum. The model gets a little warm due to the mass of metals and the residual heat it contains, but I've never yet done damage to any of the other parts previously fitted. Once it has cooled off sufficiently, turn the model over and fill up the other side...

Cheers
Paul
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Re: Beer and Buckjumpers

Postby Paul Willis » Wed Dec 22, 2021 10:40 pm

In another post looking back through the years, David Thorpe and I were talking about the use of conductive silver paint (in reality, a lacquer of suspended silver particles) to short out wheels for split axles:

Paul Willis wrote:
David Thorpe wrote:
Flymo748 wrote:In a sign that the last couple of years saw a fall off in the attention I paid to my own modelling, I have no idea where I put the post-it notes that I made when I was carrying out the experiment. I'll have a hunt for it and see if I can find the details to post.


Don't go to any such trouble, Paul. The facts that you haven't tried it again and haven't used it on a loco build (although I thought that was what you were using it on!) suggest that it wasn't all that successful.

DT


What I did was use a scrap axle and wheel to apply successive coats of lacquer to, building up conductivity. I measured the resistance between the tyre and axle after leaving each application to dry. The result was that after six or eight coats or so - I need to find my notes - the resistance was at a low level, and stopped decreasing further. So I reckon that the idea works.


Well, I didn't find the notes of the electrical test results. I did find the photos of the wheel that I used as a test example, and that included the notes that I wrote:

Silver paint wheels.JPG


Silver conductivity test (1).JPG


Silver conductivity test (2).JPG


After successive coats of silver lacquer (leaving each one to dry thoroughly before the next, to ensure that I didn't nudge the flakes of silver around) I measured the resistance between the axle and the steel tyre. The readings that I produced were:

1 - infinite resistance
2 - 1500 ohms
3 - 5.7 ohms
4 - 16.4 ohms (I have no idea why the resistance went back up)
5 - 3.2 ohms
6 - 2.3 ohms
7 - 2.4 ohms

I stopped at this point, and didn't do anything further. I stashed the wheel away and left it at that.

However... Having just taken the wheel out from where I stored it (okay, it took a few minutes of searching) I've just checked it with the same meter.

The resistance has increased to around 150 ohms. Whether that is because the silver is oxidising, or the lacquer is drying and hardening further to create a more resistive barrier, I really don't know. My conclusion is that this may be an aid to conductivity for split axles. It is definitely not a solution for split axles...

So back to the shorting strips and the nifty soldering :-)

Cheers
Paul
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Re: Beer and Buckjumpers

Postby nigelcliffe » Thu Dec 23, 2021 7:09 am

One, untested, thought on the silver conductive paint is to use it as a base for subsequent electro-plating.
So, paint first then some time in a plating tank to create a metal layer between rim and axle.

- Nigel

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Re: Beer and Buckjumpers

Postby Paul Willis » Thu Dec 23, 2021 11:14 am

nigelcliffe wrote:One, untested, thought on the silver conductive paint is to use it as a base for subsequent electro-plating.
So, paint first then some time in a plating tank to create a metal layer between rim and axle.

- Nigel


Typical inventive thinking from you Nigel :-)

However, practicality strikes... I have neither the knowledge nor the equipment for electroplating. So I suspect that could very easily become another rabbit hole that I could fall down.

I'll go back to the idea of soldering shorting strips in place. Whilst a little fiddly, it does actually work very well, and I've had good results to date. I'll keep the silver paint to hand, and possibly use it to just make a tiny fillet between the axle and the shorting strip. It may make little difference in practice, but it won't do any harm.

Cheers
Paul
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Re: Beer and Buckjumpers

Postby barrowroad » Thu Dec 23, 2021 11:26 am

Paul, shorting strips do work well, I've just used some of BB's on one side of my Crosti 9F - see separate post.

Robin

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Re: Beer and Buckjumpers

Postby nigelcliffe » Thu Dec 23, 2021 12:15 pm

Paul Willis wrote:
nigelcliffe wrote:One, untested, thought on the silver conductive paint is to use it as a base for subsequent electro-plating.
So, paint first then some time in a plating tank to create a metal layer between rim and axle.

- Nigel


Typical inventive thinking from you Nigel :-)

However, practicality strikes... I have neither the knowledge nor the equipment for electroplating. So I suspect that could very easily become another rabbit hole that I could fall down.
....


It's the inverse of etching :-) Just run the current backwards!



Where is your new place ?


- Nigel

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Re: Beer and Buckjumpers

Postby Edward45 » Thu Dec 23, 2021 1:49 pm

You learn something everyday, and there was me believing that etching for kits was a chemical rather than an electrical process.

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Re: Beer and Buckjumpers

Postby John Palmer » Thu Dec 23, 2021 2:34 pm

nigelcliffe wrote:One, untested, thought on the silver conductive paint is to use it as a base for subsequent electro-plating.
So, paint first then some time in a plating tank to create a metal layer between rim and axle.

- Nigel

Many, many years ago, when I first began to investigate split axle current collection, I made some attempts to create an electrical bridge between tyre and axle by means of copper plating wheels.

I began with the hope of using conductive paint to form such a bridge but was so disappointed by the results as to turn to copper plating as an alternative. Having a pharmacist as a friend, it was straightforward to obtain a ready-brewed copper sulphate solution as the electolyte required for such a process, but I gather there should be no great difficulty in making up such a solution for yourself by dissolving copper sulphate crystals in water until accumulation of undissolved crystals in the bottom of the mixing vessel indicates that a saturated solution has been attained.

It's so long since I engaged in these experiments that I can recollect very little of the details. I applied some form of mask - possibly Humbrol's Maskol - to those parts of the wheels that were not to be plated, primarily wheel treads and flanges. As best I can recall, the wheels were then suspended in the CuSO4 electrolyte using stiff wire, to which bell wire was connected for the return part of the circuit to the power source, which I think must have been a Hammant & Morgan combined transformer and controller unit. A wire was also led from the other terminal in the power source to the electrolyte to complete the circuit, the amount of current passed being regulated by the H&M controller in the circuit. The conductive paint proved to be an excellent base layer to receive the deposition of copper ions from the electrolyte, and what was visually a most satisfactory layer of copper was soon built up on the backs of the wheels.

I opted for a CuSO4 solution as the source of the copper to be deposited on the wheels as it seemed to be the most user-friendly and non-hazardous way into the plating business. Other methods, as they say, are available.

Ultimately the plating exercise proved fruitless for me because, for reasons I was never able to establish, I was unable to obtain a low resistance electrical connection from tyre to axle via the copper plating. I'm unable to say whether the problem lay at the tyre-to-plating or at the plating-to-axle interface, but it seems that at one or both of these points a reliable connection could not be established, and it was for that reason that I went over to a length of wire running down the back of a spoke and soldered to the wheel rim as a more reliable way of creating the circuit required for current collection. It was clear, however, that there was no great difficulty in depositing a conductive layer of copper on the rear of a wheel by electro plating, so that if some means could be found of overcoming the connectivity problems I have described this could prove to be a promising technique in the armoury of the split axle enthusiast.

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Split chassis steps

Postby Paul Willis » Thu Dec 23, 2021 10:13 pm

Having talked about the finishing steps of weighting the E22 body and a diversion into ways of shorting out wheels, it's now time to think about bringing body and chassis together.

There are two particular steps to this which you should have to do with a locomotive built to use conventional wiper pick-ups. Both steps are really straightforward, but worth mentioning on the way through.

Firstly, to insulate the brakes on one side of the chassis from the other - split chassis, ya see ;-)

I'd built the brakegear originally using normal straight brass wire. This was to ensure that everything was in the right position, and lined up with the wheels, etc. To "insulate" this, I cut out the middle section of the cross-wires, and glued in place some replacement brake rodding made from Slaters thin plastic rod. Whilst this isn't the continuous rodding that you would find on the prototype, it looks good enough when close to the rails and hidden deep in the darkness under the locomotive. Indeed, the occasional blobby bit of glue resembles oily gunge that has built up on the rodding.

Insulated brake rodding.JPG


Secondly, I needed to insulate the chassis and motor from the body, to prevent the body inadvertently carrying current from one side of the chassis to the other.

This was done in two ways, using the same technique. I insulated the underneath of the body, and the sides of the gearbox (in case with the movement of the suspension, it came into contact with the inside of the body). In both cases, this was done by positioning Rizla cigarette papers and fixing them by flooding them with very thin superglue. This is absorbed and bonds the paper very firmly. Once it has dried hard, the excess paper can be trimmed back to the edges.

Rizla insulation 1.JPG


Rizla insulation 2.JPG


After this, just a couple more steps to get me to that state of basic painting that I had previously shown I had reached.

Cheers
Paul
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Buckjumper into primer

Postby Paul Willis » Wed Dec 29, 2021 8:08 am

After ensuring that the body and chassis were insulated, the next step was to start the painting of the body.

The first step was to prime the body. I use the two-part self-etch primer from either Comet or Precision. I have stock of both, and it really just depends on the colour I will put over it. One of them is black in coverage, and the other one is yellow. In this case, I used the yellow one, which was once available from Comet.

I know that there have been discussions about the various rattle cans of self-etch primer available for car use from Halfords and other places. I haven't ruled out using them in future. It's just that whilst I still have some of this two-part and it works well, I don't see a reason to stop using it and buy something else.

As this is primer, and not a colour coat, it only needed to be a thin application. Literally nothing more than a thin application. So the various parts of the locomotive body were put in my spray booth, a small quantity of primer mixed up and put in the airbrush, and breathing mask donned...

E22 primer 3.JPG


E22 primer 1.JPG


One other thing that needed doing at this point were the coupling rods. My usual way of doing these is to mount them on cocktail sticks stuck into foam. In this case, it's my homemade loco cradle that does the holding. And then they are also sprayed.

E22 primer 2.JPG


After spraying, the primer was left to harden for a good few days...

Cheers
Paul
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It's gone red!

Postby Paul Willis » Thu Jan 06, 2022 10:19 pm

Paul Willis wrote:One other thing that needed doing at this point were the coupling rods. My usual way of doing these is to mount them on cocktail sticks stuck into foam. In this case, it's my homemade loco cradle that does the holding. And then they are also sprayed.

After spraying, the primer was left to harden for a good few days...


And after leaving this post for a few days to harden... :-) The coupling rods were painted vermillion, in best GER fashion.

Coupling rods painted (1).JPG


Coupling rods painted (2).JPG


The next stage was to start painting the body itself.

Cheers
Paul
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E22 painting

Postby Paul Willis » Sat Feb 19, 2022 3:33 pm

I'd forgotten that I was going to show a few images of how I brought the E22 build to a conclusion with the painting of it.

To start, proof that not everything goes to plan... I have a whizzy little battery powered, button operated paint stirrer. It's by Badger (https://www.umpretail.com/products/badger-paint-mixer) and is a bit like a cappuccino frother. Except it's less likely to get you into trouble with other hot drink consuming members of the household.

I find that it works extremely well, stirring up enamels to give a smooth finish whether they are painted or sprayed. However, from time to time I have a "wardrobe malfunction" in operating it. Usually by not paying enough attention to the angle and depth that I'm using it at. In which case, something like this results:

Paint spraying 1.JPG


Easy enough to clean up with turps, and at least I haven't done the cardinal sin of letting go of the paint pot, so that throws itself around the room. Yet.

I should also mention the way that I let models dry. We all probably have our own ways of doing this. I've heard of greenhouse propagators being used, and all sorts of containers. This is just cheap and easy for me. Empty boxes from the local Chinese takeaway. Enjoy the contents first, and do wash them out thoroughly. Model is sprayed and placed on the upside down lid, then the box placed on top.

Paint spraying 2.JPG


I leave the boxes slightly askew, so there is not a seal which could prevent the solvents from escaping. That said, I tend to leave the paints to harden properly for a few days between each stage, making sure that they are fully dry before moving on. My thinking is that if it's taken <ahem> a couple of years for the build to reach this stage, there's no point in mucking it up by ruining the final part.

The E22 was sprayed in GER Ultramarine cellulose - I had my local motor car factors mix up a 0.25l tin a couple of years ago. It was paint-matched to a model painted in Precision Paints GER Blue, rather than me picking a colour out of a catalogue. Reading the code on the side of the tin, it turns out to be this, if anyone else is interested: https://www.advancedpaints.co.uk/product/duchess-blue-midnight-20c40/

I've posted this picture on the Forum before. This is how I remember to set the correct air pressure...
Compressor air pressures.JPG



I must mark down the setting for my grit gun, once I've used it enough to have a decent baseline of evidence.

And this was the result. The body colour was sprayed in cellulose over the primed model. Then the smokebox was covered in matt black enamel, as was the cab front, then a finishing layer of LifeColor "Burned Black" which as an acrylic was able to take to the surface as it had been keyed for it. This gave a lovely base for weathering later in the process.

E22 base coat painting (3).JPG


Cheers
Paul
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Winander
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Re: E22 painting

Postby Winander » Sat Feb 19, 2022 7:20 pm

Paul Willis wrote:And this was the result. The body colour was in cellulose, the smokebox was first covered in matt black enamel, as was the cab front, then a finishing layer of LifeColor "Burned Black". This gave a lovely base for weathering later in the process.

Where, did you miss an image? IIRC from decades ago, cellulose will not go on top of many other paints. Conversely other paints will go over cellulose, but you said the smokebox was done first. Does cellulose go on top of enamels?
Richard Hodgson
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Paul Willis
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Re: E22 painting

Postby Paul Willis » Sat Feb 19, 2022 8:04 pm

Winander wrote:
Paul Willis wrote:And this was the result. The body colour was in cellulose, the smokebox was first covered in matt black enamel, as was the cab front, then a finishing layer of LifeColor "Burned Black". This gave a lovely base for weathering later in the process.

Where, did you miss an image? IIRC from decades ago, cellulose will not go on top of many other paints. Conversely other paints will go over cellulose, but you said the smokebox was done first. Does cellulose go on top of enamels?


Thanks Richard!

I forgot to click the [Place inline} button on the last attachment... Silly me!

In fact, the locomotive ended up with all three paint types on it - cellulose, enamel and acrylic. I've tweaked the wording a bit to make it more clear about the sequence. I find that acrylic doesn't take well over gloss or satin paint (this blue is satin), but over matt it will.

I've found that you can spray cellulose safely over enamel (and for that matter on plastic models like wagons) as long as you apply it in light enough coats. It needs to virtually dry on impact, as it is the solvent that causes the enamel to go all orange peel. Having well hardened enamel paint (my earlier point about paints in general) also helps, as there will be no reaction with enamel solvents still present in softer paint.

This has all been trial and error over time. Expect more trials, and errors (like my ultrasonic bath disaster with the 48xx body) to come! :-)

Cheers
Paul
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David Knight
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Re: Beer and Buckjumpers

Postby David Knight » Sat Feb 19, 2022 10:04 pm

I discovered a cheap trick when trying to make sure my stirrer didn’t spray me and the room. Take the core from a finished roll of toilet paper and place it over the tin. Grip the tin at the bottom of the tube. Problem solved.

HTH,

David

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Will L
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Re: Beer and Buckjumpers

Postby Will L » Sun Feb 20, 2022 12:26 am

David Knight wrote:I discovered a cheap trick when trying to make sure my stirrer didn’t spray me and the room. Take the core from a finished roll of toilet paper and place it over the tin. Grip the tin at the bottom of the tube. Problem solved.

HTH,

David

Personally I always found not taking the stirrer (sort of L shaped wire in a mini drill) out of the paint before it stops turning was sufficient. But then I might like living dangerously!


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