Improving 'teak' finish

[Lysander]

Quietly lurking!

Thank you Biggles. I’ll post photos soon but the third carriage is now finished and after spraying the roof again it’s surprisingly fine. Should have been a walk in the park this but for my carelessness!

What would we do without superglue and really fine emery paper though?

Tony

[Bigglesof266]

Yes. Clumsily phrased. @ self

What I meant to convey was "I have been lurking in this thread", which I'm sure you comprehended.

Argh! Cyanoacrylates. Despite having used them for decades in specific purposed applications, I continue to have a love-hate relationship with the stuff. A necessary evil.

[Lysander]

No I did understand - I just loved the expression!

I agree your comment re. CA. Sometimes it goes terribly wrong, especially when inadvertently finger-printed onto the side of a coach! It has happened....

Tony

[Bigglesof266]

Yes. CA anywhere near anything after final finishing is risking aesthetic blemish to a ruined part and PITA repair.

The right fresh CA, applicator, experience and exercising care can help, but ...I still detest using the stuff generally, and with the exception of etch, particularly in plastics modelling.

The number of times I've received an expensive Hornby loco or coach OOTB with a significant aesthetic flaw requiring rectification caused by careless application of rubbish CA or other application and fixing in place ineptitude! If I was in the UK it'd be turned around immediately, returned for replacement or refund.

e.g. I received a high detail Coronation once with a huge blob of irremovable superglue over the nameplate which as well as generally disfiguring it, had part removed the lining. The nameplate is an eye magnet, and Hornby charge what they do for the aesthetics. How can this NOT be picked up and rejected in QC. What QC?

Said nameplate, even as a pair are not available as a spare. Incredibly difficult to scavenge source a replacement part at will. So it's off to Fox transfers for an expensive replacement albeit superior part.

[Mountain]

I use it with scratch and kit building, but what I make isn't highly detailed and is not really to the same standards that I see here.
It is the best bonding agent for resin and most of the kits I build are made from resin. I've also used superglue as a filler as it works well if I sprinkle resin filings in with the glue. It is then filed down to shape. I dont say that I get an accurately smooth flat surface but it works well enough so that I am happy with it.
The only real issue I have is that it frosts up windows.
Yes, it is easy to end up with fossilised fingerprints and one can get those days when the glue stays wet for ages on the part one wants to glue but ones fingers are stuck fast to each other....

[Lysander]

Ah, the perils of CA: we've all been there. I have found that brushing Johnson's Klear over CA-frosted windows does ameliorate the blemish to a considerable degree however, although it's best to avoid it happening in the first place.

Right, probably the last set of photos for this thread now.The third coach is finished, apart from the brasswork [I'll do all four together]. The roof came up well, I'm surprised really, and only a very slight ridge is noticeable if one really looks. Once again, I have given some of the panels more coats of wash than the rest of the body to simulate repairs and revarnishing. It really does take away the 'sameness' in the rake although it does not show up well in the photos. Each coach also has a different running number.






The fourth coach is underway and should be quite straightforward if I can avoid the dramas visited on the third. The rake will then be complete and one day I'll post a vid of it running behind the electric bo-bo.

Tony

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Very nice work, look the part.

manna

[Bufferstop]

I share your feelings about CA it's ruddy menace. I've given up buying it in larger bottles, I stick to the smallest size and buy in multiples. If it's been open for a month I fling it, as it becomes far to unreliable after that.