August 2022 Forth and Clyde Area Group Meeting

This month's gathering, at the Almondell premises of the ESME as usual, coincided with a number of other obligations for some of the regulars, but even so seven of us (Alistair, Alisdair, Alasdair, Simon, Graham, James and Andy, since you ask) turned up to hear a Short Talk from Martin regarding the painting techniques he uses in modelling. The weather was very warm, for Scotland, but ESME's large lecture room was airy and cool.

We got through quite a lot of other matters, of which more later, but first a summary of the Short Talk.

Martin's "layering" techniques are developed from painting wargaming figures in 28mm "heroic" scale. A live painting session would have been slightly impractical given the time available and the size of the models, so he gave a screen presentation which allowed him to cover a lot of ground quickly. 

The idea is to apply layers of paint in stages, working from dark to light to accentuate the impression of shadows and highlights, and using progressively smaller brushes at each stage to work at a more detailed level. Most of his work is with acrylics. A wet palette (front centre of the image below - £22 on Amazon) is a requirement, with a dry palette reserved for drybrushing. The full workbench for a wargaming painter is quite a sight:

Martin recommended Vallejo's range as offering the best value for money for general use. Games Workshop washes are worth their extra cost for detailing. Coat d'Arms's Mid Brown is effective for timber. The Railmatch range works for airbrushing.

Finishing is done with washes and drybrushing (where a wide, soft brush similar to a makeup brush has most of its paint rubbed off on a paper towel). Washes are either a thin coat all over or added by brush to specific areas in precise quantity, to add contrast and definition to a base livery. Any pooled wash must be carefully spread out with a brush before it dries.

Martin started by taking us through the stages of layering on military figures as an introduction. (Before you weep, these are 28mm scale figures, twice the height of a 2mm figure)

Then he turned his attention to 2mm models. Colours are airbrushed to get thin, consistent coats. As an example, Martin used a Caledonian brake van from the Buchanan Kits range, aiming at a red oxide livery, and shown on the left below. The base coat is of Vallejo Cavalry Brown acrylic, washed with Games Workshop Agrax Earth, then drybrushed with Cavalry Brown again, with further very light drybrushing with a 3:1 mix of Cavalry Brown:Iraqi Sand. Ironwork was picked out in Black-Grey. Iraqi Sand is also useful blended into other colours for highlights, and on its on as a highlight for natural wood.  

The BR van shown on the right of the photo below followed a similar process, using Saddle Brown in place of Cavalry Brown.

A further example, not illustrated, used an RCH wagon, working from dark to light with shades of Black Red, Red and finally Flat Red for highlights. There were plenty more photos of completed stock, making us wonder how Martin finds time to eat, sleep and work.

An interesting idea Martin suggested is to practice using a 4mm model of the same prototype if you happen to have one.

Grey liveries are worked up in the same way. Ironwork details can be picked out in German Grey or Dark Grey.

The next example was weathering a Dapol BRCW Type 2 (oh all right, a Class 26) diesel-electric. After masking off the body (low-tack masking tape from Amazon at £1 a roll) the model was inverted and airbrushed from a distance with Railmatch brake brown.

The bodywork was then weathered. Thinned artists' oil paint can be used, and has the advantage that it can be lifted off with thinners if the effect is too vivid.

The slightly thinned paint is applied to door joints, corridor connections and window frames, then most of the paint lifted away with a cotton bud soaked in thinner.

Diesel exhaust is applied by drybrushing black and grey shades. Finally a mist of Frame Dirt is airbrushed from an angle to simulate how it would be thrown up onto the protype. 

Completed paint jobs are airbrushed with thinned Vallejo matt varnish to prevent the paint chipping or rubbing off when the model is handled.

Martin recommended "The Army Painter" brushes (£15 a set on Amazon), and Windsor and Newton Series 7, though these are expensive and must be carefully looked after. Acrylic brush cleaner is essential (or brush soap if a lot of painting is undertaken). Paint in the ferrule is a death knell for brushes and should be avoided where possible.

Before Martin's talk, we made some further progress with our demo layout. We wanted a cork layer on the new baseboard for the usual reasons (deadens the rumbling; accepts gentle carving to create a ballast shoulder; but mainly because everyone else seems to do it). A sheet of cork which was almost large enough was dug out of storage, and the work began. First the baseboard had to be freed from its top.

The handy-dandy corner blocks printed on Alasdair's filament 3D printer are apparent. Here's a closer view:

First, the grain in the plywood baseboard surface was gently smoothed using a block of wood wrapped in sandpaper, with wide circular motions. Then Easitrack glue (which I am told is diluted Titebond) was spread using an old plastic photocard. The cork sheet was applied, air bubbles smoothed out from centre to edges, and weights placed to keep it flat.

After a while, the weights were removed and it became apparent they had been both too light and not in all the right places. Stupid boy ... so then we did what we should have done at the start: invert the board onto a flat surface and place seriously heavy weights to crush it into compliance. (I should point out that James, a former technology teacher, was not responsible for the glueing strategy).

This worked much better. The cork adhered evenly and could be trimmed.

This is the kind of wary look former technology teachers give you when they have successfully reversed your best attempts to wreck a baseboard, but are not quite certain that you have learned your lesson.

Job done, except for putting the box back together, which of course required all hands (two workies and three foremen)

When not supervising woodwork projects, James has been patiently working to improve his Adams Chairplate technique and has developed several mechanical aids to speed things up. He found he could not get on with the 2mmSA standard chair folding jig (1-148), nor yet with sliding a chair between sleeper and rail when building a turnout, whether or not he folded up only one chair claw (for insertion by placing on the sleeper and sliding laterally) or both (for insertion by lifting up to the rail and sliding along). Instead he has developed a slightly different procedure. He prefers to press out both chair claws over a simple 1mm hole in a piece of styrene-faced plywood. Note the slight step in the styrene facing. First the etch (or an individual strip of chairs) is coloured with a felt pen so it's clear which is the underside and which the top. (The underside has a dot at the outer chair claw and a half-etched rebate to the inner claw, but felt pen is less demanding on the eyes).

 

 The shape of the tool (from a scrap of steel bar, but brass would work too) to press out the jaws took some time to perfect:

A strip of chairs is separated from the etch and a single chair placed base-up over the hole: the jaws are carefully pressed out

 The chair is turned over so the jaws point upwards, the base is flattened gently, then a blade is used to separate it from the rest of the strip.

The chair is returned to the styrene-faced hole jig and placed against the step in the facing. Then they are slid onto the prepared rail length for the next stage of the point under construction. The rail (also pre-marked with felt pen on the top - the larger "bull" head) is held the correct way up using a small clamp made from brass sheet, and the required chairs picked up and slid on in the correct order.

Here's the other side of the clamp.

This works well for James, but each to his or her own: what works for one person may not work for the next. Discussing the chairplates with Laurie Adams at the Derby expo, he mentioned that he now uses only liquid rosin flux (which does not require to be washed off between sessions - and of course a turnout is often not completed in a single session) and tends to use it plentifully along with 0.6mm leaded solder balls. Other hints are not to tin the chairplates - simply clean them mechanically with a Garryflex block or similar before starting - and only to prepare enough chairplates for the work being done that evening: don't prepare and store batches, since they will tarnish before use and the solder will not flash between sleeper and chairplate.

Others had their own projects to be getting on with. Martin was working on yet more wagons.

James and Andy were discussing track.

Alistair was lost in thought.

Alisdair was soldering up a connector cable for Aucheidh, his folding layout booked for its first showing in a few short weeks by a courageous impresario in the North East of England. He's in there under the Optivisor somewhere. Simon was working on a Worsley Works coach etch which he had bought from Alisdair a few  minutes previously. No time like the present!

Alasdair, seemingly startled at the presence of the photographer, was working on a curved turnout with interlaced timbers using Easitrac parts.

If you've read this far you probably deserve an award. And there were not even any jokes. If you need these, refer back to blogs from the previous few months.

Next month we will meet a week later than usual, due to the North East Area Group's 40th anniversary bash which many of us hope to attend. The NEAG brought several FCAG members into the 2mm fraternity in the days before a Scottish area group, and indeed the NEAG's Anthony Yeates came up through the FCAG on his way back to the North-East. We are all looking forward very much to September 10th in Bournmoor.