Finished Business - a 15" Workhorse

Last seen a month ago, things have moved on with my O9 4w internal combustion loco build with it emerging from the paintshop. I'd say resplendent but it is clearly a little way from it, being finished in a work-a-day style befitting of a little workhorse, even on 15" gauge.

The first step was a coat of grey primer, allowing identification and rectification of any issues. 

Once tidied the grey primer was overcoated with Halfords red primer as a basis for a red livery, the chosen colour being Citadel 'Mephiston Red' (lighter I believe than the old 'Scab Red'). It is unusual for me to brush paint a loco but on this occasion I gave it a try. Three even coats were required, with a day between coats to dry and very light use of dry 1500 wet and dry to remove any blips in the finish.

The buffer beams were originally going to be yellow with black chevrons, to the point of being white primed and sprayed yellow! But I realised as this may need to represent a machine being used in the 1960s such things had not really reached the minimum gauge at that time so after rubbing down red primer was applied and three coats of Vallejo red applied instead.

The underframe areas are finished in an off black, black mixed down with brown to make it less "black". I had originally used Vallejo black-grey in this area but it looked wrong, although this colour did form the basis of the cab roof.

The headlights were painted off the model and given a fill of Araldite after vanishing. The whole model was sprayed with Humbrol matt acrylic aerosol varnish, taking care to pick a good day weather wise over Easter and not to over-coat whilst wet, which inevitably leads to blooming in the finish. As well as adding headlights after varnishing, the air horn was also added, being pre-painted from a previous life on SMR no.3. The cab front windows were glazed with 20 thou material, held in place with Johnson's Kleer. This is a single piece of glazing so I resorted to using a window weathering colour on the inside of the cab to hide any reflections from it, carefully removing paint from he inside of the portal windows with a damp cotton bud.

Weathering relies on washes and dry-brushing. I'm still experimenting with Citadel 'Nuln Oil' as a wash, using it on the bonnet sides around the doors and louvres. Dry brushing included a lightened body colour on edges of the cab and bonnet and some muck etc around the running gear. The final job was to fit Microtrains couplers, and on finding no built 1015 examples in the box I assembled the last three sets in a pack to build up stock and fitted one set to the loco, blackening the screw head and exposed thread. The visible parts of the shiny coupler boxes benefit from a matt brown wash to tone them down.

With the driver installed, set in place with Tacky Wax, the loco is now complete and ready for running trials. I have not added any weight as yet as the new style Kato chassis is an unknown quantity for me.

Colin