Lining Ivor

After all the fun with the large 16mm scale Hudson Hunslet I've switched back to doing some work on Ivor.

Since we last saw the model I've added the chimney and water filler cap and painted in their brass sections along with the brass window surrounds. Having added those I sprayed the model with a gloss varnish (specifically Vallejo Mecha Varnish 26.701) using the airbrush. While I don't want the model to have a gloss finish this was so that I could have a nice shiny surface to paint on the lining.

Doing the lining has been the most difficult part of the painting so far. The lines are etched into the model and I was hoping I could just flood the lines with yellow paint. Unfortunately that didn't seem to work, mostly as the yellow paint was almost transparent and so didn't show up. In the end I mixed yellow and ivory paint together to give a thicker more opaque paint. This was then painted, fairly roughly, over the lines with the excess then wiped away using a wet cotton bud. I did have to do some of the lines a couple of times to get enough paint into the lines; mostly as some of the lines were quite shallow due to a build up of the green paint.

Looking at the model I'm really happy with how the lining has turned out. Clearly it wouldn't be appropriate for most locos, but for Ivor I think it's perfect, as the colour in the originals varies in both hue and intensity along the lines and between different shots and I think I've managed to capture that quite well.

10HP Baguley: Dunkelgrün

Whilst I've started on preparing the body of Ivor for painting I thought I should refresh my memory as regards using the airbrush: I've only ever used it properly once. The obvious victim was the tiny 10HP Baguley that last appeared on this blog back in August of 2020. At some point I'd filed back the filler and added some primer so it was just a case of applying the main body colour with the airbrush. The suggestion is that originally they were pained olive green but looking through the Vallejo Model Air paints I quite liked 71.011 Armour Green; especially as I like the German label which reads Dunkelgrün. Once the main body colour had dried I then used my normal approach for wood to do the "cab" floor, and then a little light weathering to get to this:

The weathering is a little more obvious in real life even if the model is a lot smaller (it's tiny) and I'm really happy with how it turned out; especially as I had no issues with the airbrush

Unfortunately it's never going to be the best of runners so I think what I'm going to do is build a little diorama for it to sit in. I've not done any scenery work since I built the model of Blacketty Water back in 2015 so that should be a nice change.

A Painted Wheel

In parallel to trying to determine the right colour of green paint to use, I've also been experimenting to try and find the best way of painting the wheels. Obviously I need to keep the paint off the flange and tread to ensure it can pick up power from the track. I initially thought about 3D printing some masks that would allow me to spray (at least the primer) onto the wheels and while they did work, I found they didn't give the best result around the edge of the wheel face. So I resorted to painting them by hand.

My first attempt involved painting on black primer, then the green for the rim, and then painting the spokes red. This worked but I found the very stark transition between the paint and the brass wheel tread was very obvious. What I've ended up doing is cleaning the wheels thoroughly, and then using Birchwood Casey Brass Black to darken the face of the wheel. The tread was then polished to remove any that had run down the side, before again applying paint, primer, and matt vanish; all by hand with a brush.

So far I've fully done one wheel. I'm sure the result could be better, painting between the spokes is a pain, but I'm happy with how it looks. More importantly I think it matches up with the pictures in my book pretty well.

Now I just need to paint the other three wheels.

Colour Matching

With the curved handrail made up, I can think about moving on to painting Ivor. There is still work to do to the body (filling some gaps etc.) before it can be painted but I want to get the chassis painted and fully assembled, including pickups and coupling rods, first. Whilst I can easily paint the chassis black I also need to paint the wheels. These are always depicted as having red spokes and central boss, with a green balance weight (when it's drawn) and rim. The problem is what colour green should I use?

The instructions suggest that the model should be painted using "Plastikote 104S Enamel Paint Garden Green" but to my eye looking at this photo (lifted from the instruction sheet) that is way too bright a green.

Given I'd like to use a paint I can use both with a brush and in the airbrush I had a look at the Vallejo Model Air colour chart I have (possibly a bit out of date now) to try and find a good match. The problem is that the colour of Ivor also seems to change from drawing to drawing in my childhood book and in the end I couldn't find a single colour that matched perfectly, although I did find four colours that seemed close to what I needed. A little bit of shopping later and I had four dropper bottles of paint. Of course paint in a bottle can be very misleading so I made up a quick test piece.

I tried to replicate the final colour as close as possible (I settled on using a brush rather than the airbrush for speed) by giving the brass a black undercoat, then adding a patch of each colour, before sealing with a matt varnish. The numbers are part of the code of each paint so that I know which is which. My inital thought was that the one on the left (Model Air 71.006 Light Green Chromate) might be the best match. I know it's tricky giving varying lighting conditions and problems of the camera trying to correct etc. but does anyone want to have a guess before we go any futher?

Armed with the test piece the next step was to try it against some of the plates in my book. First stop, the front cover

Now I've always thought that the front cover image is a bit dark, but my first thought of the paint on the left does look like a reasonable match, at least amongst the four paints on the test piece; the two on the right have way too much blue in them.

Next I had a look at the classic drawing of Ivor singing with the choir for the first time.

As you can see the colours are much brighter than on the front cover, and now I think the second colour (Model Air 71.095 Pale Green) is a much better match, although not perfect.

I had a further flick through my book though and settled on this plate from the story where we first meet Idris

Now to my eye that second colour is an almost perfect match to that plate, or at least as good as I'm likely to get without trying to mix my own custom colour. What does everyone else think?

A Hi-Vis Makeover