The class 24 skinhead was not the only output from the weathering day last weekend – indeed, it was a very busy day!

First up were some of my 1920’s rilling stock – both Highland, a timber truck from a Model Wagon Co whitemetal kit and a horsebox from a Lochgorm etched kit. Both are now close to finished – a load is requird for the former and some glass for the latter (and probably a light colour inside the groom’s compartment.

Neat vehicles though and I am pleased with them – less so than the brakevans that I managed to dislodge the lettering upon and may well need to be stripped – as you would imagine, no photos of these and nor any photo’s from today’s efforts with paintstripper!

But the main additional output was some more coaches for Portchullin.  I managed three and Peter Bond looked close to finishing his third as I left, so we had a proper little production line going!

The technique was essentially the same as I described for the class 24, although as you can see the model was broken down rather more (in part to populate the interior of the carriages – I do hate seeing trainloads of empty coaches on model railways!).  However, for the maroon coach, rather than using thinners to take back off the paint, T-Cut was used.  This is an abrasive so does not work in quite the same manner but acheives broadly the same effect except that it also polishes the paint.  I did not think this was right for the blue/grey coaches (they were finished in satin in reality) but the maroon coaches were in a gloss finish and the T-cut gives a slight sheen without actually getting to gloss.  I did eventually think it was a bit too shiny, so did waft over with the finest of sprays of the “gunk” again just to take it back a touch.

The Bachmann Mk 1s are very good models that have stood the test of time well.  They are a doddle to convert to P4; taking maybe 60-80 minutes a go.  There are a couple of things to look out for – firstly is that the side frames are a touch to tight for true guage wheels and need to be filed back.  The plastic is quite flexible and does create burrs fairly easily, so once the filing has been done some work with a sharp scalpel is required to clean this up.

The next caution is that the bogie mounts are not always parallel with the rail head, meaning that the bogie can lean forward or backward.  This is caused by the chassis being screwd a little over-hard onto the body, causing it to flex slightly.  You are just as likely to have done this as the manufacturers and I get around it by making it rock slightly with some thin (20 thou) strip like this.

Arguably one of their weaknesses is the corridor connection which is a tad toy-train (well it is a toy train!).  A dodge that I have started to do is fit a few of my vehicles with some black foam in the door jambs.  Make this so that it sticks out 3-4mm and engages in the equivilent of the adjacent vehicle to block out the light.   A simple dodge that makes a big difference.  It does mean that the vehicles that are fitted thus have to be in the centre of the train (as the foam looks crude where it is exposed) but this can be done with care – for example a buffet would nearly always be in the centre of a train, so this is the vehicle of the two I fitted with this.