Class 25 repaint

Hopefully the variation in the faded levels of the coat is visible

As things turned out I got home a little earlier than expected and have spent a couple of evenings playing trains. The project I am most keen to finish is the class 25 re-paint that has been dragging on for months!! I gave it a blast of standard BR blue over the top of faded BR blue at the weekend and left it to harden for a couple of days. Last night the masking came off.


As things turned out I got a little keen and realised I had forgotten to replace the handrails on the cab!! A job for later this week.

This is the first time I have ever tried to repaint a locomotive and my first attempt at proper masking. I am pretty happy with the result. It is not perfect, but it is close enough, the minor imperfections being my limited ability to mask around the corners on the cab. With a bit more experience I would have set the edge between the yellow and blue on the body edge of the cab or further back towards the window. A little bit of internet research has shown where the yellow stopped and the blue started was quite variable.


The other end - the masking job seems ok - any imperfections I can hide with a little bit of weathering

Anyhow, this repaint represents a step change in my modelling, being able to strip and repaint a locomotive is a big step forward to me. I am not saying this one is perfect, but hopefully future attempts will get better. Both yellow and blue coats have been applied as faded matt coats. The bright white light I model under has done little to show the true colour of these coats. However, I am going to seal this with a satin varnish just to take the edge of it a little, before adding some transfers and then a heavy weathering job.

Hopefully, the images show that there is some significant variation in the coating of the livery, through mixing standard BR blue and faded BR blue in different coats. This will hopefully be the basis of an uneven sun and rain weathered BR blue livery in the early 1980's, but we shall see how successfully this turns out. Hopefully, I will get the transfers on within a week, leaving only the weathering to finish this off. A phone call from Modelmaster assures me that the transfers are on the way. However, this time I was planning to use Humbrol Decalfix for the transfers - I have never used this product so if anyone has some tips on this they would be much appreciated.