Sunday, January 12, 2020

Just one year has passed with little activity

I started out with a Marklin model railway back in January 2019 which has been my only focus for the last 12 months. I have done a little amount of plastic modelling but it has all been buldings for the railway so I didn't feel that this fitted into my modelling blog themes. My wife, Valerie, has finally told me to "do something else". On being asked what, she told me to make the Trumpeter BR52 loco (or lok as I now call these things) as I enjoyed that before and it was a good sized project. Good sized? Well!!

I had a trip up to Hannants last week with my close friend Mark to collect the kit. Needless to say, I bought some other stuff - some paint and the beautiful Tamiya 1:48th scale Lockheed P-38. Lunch in the White Hart at Blythburgh rounded out a nice trip.

Here is the kit - TU00210 -


Here is the inside -


My first job was to get the airbrush working again. It all had to come back from storage and be cleaned uo before use. Unfortunately, I can't find the quick release for the airbrush so I ordered one from The Airbrush Company but managed to order a set that is too big. I did that a few times when I had the shop so I should have known better! I also had to put together a spraying booth. I turned to my trusty 5mm foam core board and this is what I came up with.


I only use acrylics so there isn't a great demand for extraction of fumes. I have a nice lamp that stands next to the working bench so the light is great. The turntable makes spraying things very simple and the collection bottle gives a good holder. I still have the really great Iwata HP-CH which I bought soon after shutting the shop and the Iwata PowerJet Pro compressor is still going great guns.

My first step is to get the track prepared so that there is somewhere to put the lok and tender as they get built. A coat of Vallejo Mecha black primer all over is a good base. I then sprayed the edges with Vallejo Gloss varnish. 


Then the sleepers got a coat of dark brown (Lifecolor) and the rails some Mig Ammo Metal Steel.


It is all on hold now while the paint dries overnight. The next step is to mask off the gloss sides and then paint the ballast a few shades of grey. That's the next instalment.

Here is the base completed. Now I can get on with the lok itself.