The Big 4-0

[Rippers]

No, not a indication of my reaching a milestone birthday........ sadly I passed that half a decade ago and currenty working through the various classes of peaks.

Just I was recently given the oppotunity of devalu.... sorry weathering a new 7mm scale Heljan class 40 and thought that I would share the results of my endeavours with you all......



Note that the repainting extended to the inside pipework and fittings aswell as the outside..........


and yes I have located and refitted the errant windsceen wiper............. which like most of the glazing was in the bottom of the box after a trip through the post to get to me..........


The nose end tops and roof panels were given a good dose of fading treatment prior to weathering........I lost count of the number of different BR blue shades I used on this model at 15......




As requested I have gone for a down at heal appearance with this model, including signs of primer showing through the paint in places, day to day knocks and staining from the washing plant chemicals and the like................ my dodgy photography asside you might also be able to just make out details such as the fact that the drivers door (no doubt a replacement at some point) is a completely different blue to the rest of the loco!



Scary isnt it............ by comparison the Bachmann 40 which I have long thought of as a large model to work on seems tiny........... mind working with the heavyweight Heljan offering moving about between workbench and spraybooth has been like having a workout.

A really fun project though which over-ran my estimate and ended at nearly 30 hours work (mind most of it is hand finishing and not airbrush work).

Good job its a TOP's blue one and not a tatty pre TOP's Green full yellow end as then I would have been really reluctant to give it back................

 

[Neil]

That's an interesting comparison. What stands out to my eyes is the difference in base colours between the two models, the 4mm example having a more vibrant tone with a greater proportion of blue, lesser proportion of green in the mix. I prefer the more bluey blue, it better matches my memories of the real thing and looks more full of life. I imagine that indoors under artificial light the differences will be even more apparent.

 

[vimpto]

not an expert on fortys but as the heljan depicts 40009 still having tanks,frost guards and discs its in late 70's guise and would be pretty faded by then.

 

[Neil]

It's not the fading (I generally approve of lighter colours) but the greener tone of the underlying paint that I find less attractive/less lifelike.

 

[warren haywood]

When I get Heljan diesels to weather I always give them a coat of gloss lacquer, this really brings out the colour which I think is a bit flat. You then can also get that shiney and dirty effect.

 

[Ressaldar]

When I get Heljan diesels to weather I always give them a coat of gloss lacquer, this really brings out the colour which I think is a bit flat. You then can also get that shiney and dirty effect.

I've just weathered 40.012 for a friend









and I coated it with Johnson's Klear before applying the Railmatch Frame and Roof Dirt, then applied Hobby Holidays washes to the bogies and pipework.

cheers

Mike

 

[Rippers]

That's an interesting comparison. What stands out to my eyes is the difference in base colours between the two models, the 4mm example having a more vibrant tone with a greater proportion of blue, lesser proportion of green in the mix. I prefer the more bluey blue, it better matches my memories of the real thing and looks more full of life. I imagine that indoors under artificial light the differences will be even more apparent.

I fully agree with what you are saying. But funny thing, in issolation neither model looks wrong and each looks like the prototype it represents.
Then again the early blue small yellow panel repaints (such as those on Peaks) were a different shade again.......

A friend who worked at Eastleigh works many years back commented that no one shade of BR Blue paint available to modellers was truely correct.......but in effect they all were.........
His reasoning (based on painting the real thing) was that the different methods of application at differerent works and times, different undercoats and finishing varnishes, plus the fact that often the paint was mixed on site 'by eye' led to different shades and finishes (even without subsequent weathering and fading).

 

[warren haywood]

Here's an interesting paragraph from Rail Blue Website


With the comparatively new era of the World Wide Web many questions have arose considering whether 'Chromatic Blue' ever really existed. With the introduction of the new livery, paints and paint application was, as with the railways, entering a new era of advancement. Many manufacturers put forward their ideas and presumably wishful guarantees on how the new pigment would look, and moreover....last. During these early years several methods were tried and tested to evaluate the hue and quality with regard to both looks and service life. Several application methods were evaluated; by the well used and infallible brush, by spray painting, and the relatively new 'airless' spray method. Any of these could also have been possibly given a coat of varnish again, to evaluate qualities.
With this in mind, and with no actual physical evidence to hand, the standard rail blue colour could 'appear' in archive photographs to be several shades different to that of the standard. Indeed, even today, with now many of the first generation diesel and electric locomotives in preservation, rail blue looks certainly different when recently applied to that of units several years old.
Chromatic or rail blue? - the debate goes on.....

 

[Steph Dale]

Warren,
I'm firmly of the belief that so-called 'chromatic' blue is in fact stock monastral 'rail' blue. There are two reasons for this, firstly I don't think there's yet been a discovery of the actual paint specification. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it's this business with airless spraying which is well documented. So the rolling stock comes out of the paint shop with a hard matt finish, this would have been very alien to anyone working on the railways at the time and I suspect it would have been easy for people to fall back on more traditional finishing methods, like varnishes or even oil. I strongly suspect the latter.
There is one final piece in the puzzle, having looked at a few photos claiming to show this rare and precious colour. In most of the photos I've seen the colour balance is off. I wonder if the use of old film stock, lousy corner-shop processing or similar has added to the myth.
The bugger is that I suspect we'll never know for sure!
Steph

 

[oldravendale]

Just a thought about photographs - "Kodachrome" was always reckoned to be the most reliable colour film in terms of translation of colours and blue should not have been a problem to it, assuming the dyes were not reflecting in the infra red - which of course we don't know! However, the colour will still have been influenced by the colour of the light/time of day etc so it'll still be difficult to be definitive, even with the most reliable film and processing.

Brian

 

[Phill Dyson]

I think it has already been established that Chromatic Blue is a bit of a diesel modellers urban myth

 

[oldravendale]

.....and lo and behold, I found one of my Kodachrome slides of a BR blue diesel - probably the only one in my collection. It rather shows the problem with colour reproduction depending on the light and reflections. This is a direct scan and has not had any post production - witness the scruffy marks all over it which will be corrected in due course.


D600 in front with, I believe but need to check notes, D601 behind. Barry Scrapyard. 9 November 1968. Photo and copyright are mine.

Brian

 

[Dikitriki]

That photo really doesn't help Brian. I am trying to fight off the purchase of a Fred Phipps G1 D600, and you go and do something like that.

Richard

 

[oldravendale]

......well, you'll need two, but you won't need to make them go!

B