O Gauge Olive Green BSK - another vehicle for the engineers fleet

Another project I recently managed to finish was the repainting of a Lionheart BSK coach into olive green livery. Repainting 'ready to run' stock in O gauge is a somewhat move involved process than in OO gauge. due to the construction of models in O gauge is much more complex with many separately fitted parts. Of course, this is brilliant for O gauge modellers as the level of detail is superb  but it does create complications when stripping down models for repainting / detailing. Anyhow, I acquired a Lionheart BSK coach in SR (BR) green at bargain price to experiment with repainting an 'rtr' O gauge model.

The original BSK in the BR (S) green livery.

The Lionheart Mk1 coaches are stunning models in my opinion, so it was with a deep breath that I started to dismantle the coach ready for repainting. To strip the coach down you have to separate the sides from the ends, roof and underframe. The separately fitted details on the coach sides are also problematic and during the removal of these I broke several of the door handles. However, a quick email to Dapol / Lionheart had some spares quickly sent out to me - so some positive praise to Dapol / Lionheart team for excellent customer service. Conversely, the window glazing is screwed into the coaches and this made removal really simple - which is quite a contrast to the awful glues used on other Dapol models, such as the DMUs that means the glazing is unlikely to be removed without being destroyed (this is another story).

BSK after disassembly.

Once the coach was disassembled, I removed the original transfers using some fine wet and dry paper and glued some thin plasticard to replicate the welded up windows seen on some of the coaches in the engineers department. The selection of windows for this was somewhat freehand and loosely based on some photographs I found online of coaches in the engineers department. For ease, I ended up doing this to the four end windows on the model.

Plasticard added to replicate some welded up windows - I have no idea what the reason was for this on the real railway....

The different coach components then had a wash in the sink, before I set about repainting the coach sides into olive green and weathering the chassis / roof. bogies, etc. The process of repainting was quite drawn out and as a consequence a fair bit of dust ended up attaching itself to the paint finish during the application of various coats. This was really annoying, not least because I keep the models in sealed 'Really Useful Box' during painting. However, we are still renovating our house (there is / was a lot of dust around) and life is too short to worry too much about these things.

First attempt at reassembly - I completely forgot about repainting the bars on the window and these somewhat stood out!

The coach was painted using Railmatch enamels via my airbrush and some transfers were applied from the Railtec range. The positioning of transfers was loosely based on photographs I found online but was also a consequence of what I had spare in the modelling pile. I also decided to give the glazing a light spray of grime mix before reassembly. I masked the windows with individual blobs of blue tac to mimic someone roughly cleaning the windows. Of course the glazing reacted with the paint / thinners (it always does) to produce a somewhat misted finish - a bit similar to internal condensation on a wet day (the layout is set in summer though - so we shall just have to go with it!!). The door handles were then reattached to the coach sides and olive green was applied to the window glazing units over the painted frames that are moulded onto these units (I initially forgot about these and during a trial reassembly they stick out like a sore thumb!). 

The blue tac glazing on the windows, with some removed after lightly air brushing some grime over the top of the windows. 

The reassembly of the coach took a long time, primarily because it is a job you only ever do once and of course I could not remember how all of the bits joined back together. Once reassembled and placed on the track, the join between the coach sides and ends stood out a little and required a little air brushing to blend them together.  However, when this was finished and the lights were switched on I was really happy with the end result. 

The window glazing looks ok - but rather than dirt it looks more like condensation on the interior....the subtle shades on the bogies are also visible in this photo.

The finished BSK ready to roll in the engineers fleet.

The BSK coupled up to the 12T van, also in engineers green.

There is currently an olive green CCT from Heljan in the modelling boxes having a bit of weathering done and this will run with the BSK and the 12T fruit van in a small engineers rake. I am also building a Slaters BY van, which will be the final vehicle for this small rake, although the construction of the BY van is far from finished and building time for it has been very limited in recent weeks. I am currently focusing my modelling time on finishing off some buildings for the layout, ready to start gluing these in place when I next set up the layout, so construction and painting of rolling stock is now taking a bit of a back seat. However, there are plenty of models in the paint boxes at the moment and I hope to slowly work through these in the coming weeks and months.