90% complete. Time to apply some colour...
I was really struggling here because all my F500 pictures are in black & white. Matthew Labine very kindly emailed me a colour image taken at Ennis in 1961 showing F503 in a very washed out and neglected bluey green. Allowing for the considerable fading on the prototype, the nearest match I could find was Ford (UK) Meadow Green acrylic in auto touch-up aerosol cans.
The body panels and cab were completely dismantled for painting, so that where possible aerosol spray could be applied to a horizontal surface. I used two coats of grey primer with a pause of 15/20 minutes in between. Then, after 24 hours, a firm brushing with a stiff dry toothbrush followed by two or three applications of final colour, again with 15/20 minute gaps between each coat. I found I got best results by making the last coat quite liberal.
I'll not be weathering the model because I want a "recently delivered" F500 as depicted from 1957 on Page 197 of The West Clare Railway (Patrick Taylor/Plateway Press)!
(The simulated joints in the top panels are self-adhesive copper tape.)
The buffer beams were sprayed with VW Mars Red over grey primer. (You can see from the top image that my camera has difficulty delineating the red/green boundary.) The roof, inner roof panel and in-cab control panels were sprayed matt black.
The surrounds for the running lamps are cup washers. They are a little over scale - but not by very much - and I think they'll look fine once the bulbs are in place.
Other remaining details in this picture are the filler cap and beam steps.
|
The photographs and text on this page are copyright (c) Paul Backhouse 1999 and may not be reproduced or distributed without the owner's permission.
|
