As usual, I set off over the festive break with plans to do all sorts of things and failed to do any of them fully.  One aspect that I did get moved forward though was the painting and lining of a couple of my six wheeled coaches.

Back in my youth, lining pens held no fear and I could genuinely dash off a fully lined coach in a few evenings.  Thirty years of pushing a computer keyboard has dulled my drawing skills to the point where I am close to terrified to pick up a bow pen and I have not had the nerve to line a coach for a long time.  I am confronting this fear in a couple of months by attending a class run by Ian Rathbone on painting and lining at Missenden Railway Modellers.  In the meantime, however, I can still line utilising transfers, in this case those provided by Fox Transfers.

Being preformed in straight lines, these do work best for the square panelled beading of some of the Midland Clayton stock, like my dia 501 full brake.  I had taken care in designing this with beading sizes that were correct (and matched the Fox Transfers).  They thus work quite well I think.

I deliberately left the handrails and door handles off at this stage to make the lining easier but the door hinges still created problems that I will need to touch in with acrylic paints; burnt ochre looks about right.  I also still need to block in the black to the head and foot of the sides plus where the lengths of transfer where they crossed – I will do this with a Roting pen as I still feel confident enought to wield this!

So there is still plenty to do, but I am dead chuffed with this and it will soon be finished and ready for service.

Second up is a Lochgorm Models third class saloon that has been waiting for its lining for rather longer.  It is a more difficult prospect to line as it has round corners to the panels and, over the doors and windows, shallow arcs.  These can’t be formed with transfers as these are straight.  I have thus used the transfers for the straight sections and then brush painted the curved sections with cadmium yellow acrylic paint.

If all goes well, the Roting pen can then be used to infill the black to the centre and form the curves across the windows and doors.  Lets see!