restoring trashed loco's

[tornado64]

running alongside the paint thread i have decided to restore ( into BR blue ) a trashed lima 31 ( such a shame as it is a superb and i guess rare livery now ) long enjoyed restoring items such as old dinky / corgi cars and model railway items

god alone knows what the owner was thinking (or not ) but it is covered in evo stick , buffers are removed and replaced with sections of 3 core electric flex...... yep me too .....?????

so it is going to be stripped , repaired , serviced , dcc installed , re painted , weathered and parts scratch built such as cab detail

i will probably spend more than it is worth ( in time and money ) but that's not what modelling is about

[tornado64]

duly stripped !! and what a job and a half !!! what bozo glues a body to a chassis , not only that but with plastic glue so wasn't intending on getting in again !!

all glue deposits lightly scraped off with back of craft knife blade , other bad spots of glue and unwanted moulded handrails and cab band sanded with P180 wet and dry used wet then onto 1200's wet and dry

then some details scribed back in using an "o" ring tool made by by draper !





worst area is one of the front corners , this has recieved a battering as the solvent glue had taken good hold in this area so attention will be required in this area

[dman-lewis]

Can wait to see what happens, Repainting a 31 which had a poor weathering job on it.

[tornado64]

first of i cut some thin plasticard with scissors to a patch that would cover the inside area and go out a little further than the damage , this was glued into position using humbrol liquid polly !!


next a small pice that had broken off the base of the body was matched back in from where it had broken off and was glued into position with liquid poly before humbrol model filler was aplied

picture 2 is after some work with wet and dry paper used wet to get towards the shape again



picture 3 shows the body after another quick skim of filler and re rubbing down and some shaping with needle files the lost door gabs have been re scribed with a draper "o" ring tool

[tornado64]

cost up to now is £10.00p for the loco as everything else i had !!

[HARRYMALLARD]

I have just found this an am loving it so far good work Man!!

[tornado64]

calling prep work done so now to put in primer (shop around ) B&Q's price for large tin of plasticote white spray primer nearly 8 quid same item at wilkinsons stores 4.50 worth the ride around





next pre shading was done by airbrushing vallejo black acrylic



then colour humbrol br blue acrylic was airbrushed on avoiding as much as possible pre shaded areas then the colour was lightened off a little using a revell aqua white acrylic to give a little bleached appearance ( first picture isn't good as flash had adverse effects on colour



second picture is closer to real colour

[GeraldH]

Excellent job. It's nice to keep those oldies going a bit longer

[tornado64]

ordered some parts , flushglaze , hornby sprung buffers , hornby buffer beam detailing will probably do some painting later or detailing

also have baught a class 37 bad repaint , hornby 37 chassis with hornby 47 bogies ,with lima body ,,, a new lima chassis has been ordered and this will be next in line

[tornado64]

parts arrived altho work has been busy so spent more time purchasing than going in any modelling direction , so now what with no sign of the layout starting i'm planning on less time at the computer and going out buying and getting stuck into modelling and layout building this loco being for my planned layout that will be being posted in layouts in progress in the future

was out yesterday photographing the remains of the area ( a lot has changed since i worked in the signal box in 1982 !! )

anyway work starts on the buffer beams ( worst area of damage ) all glue and old details scraped off sanded , drilled to accept hornby class 31 sprung buffers

[pete12345]

Superb work on the body repairs- just like you'd do if working on a car and the results are the same. You wouldn't know anything had been done to it.

Looking forward to seeing the finished result

[tornado64]

reading magazine articles can be dangerous model rail ran an article on detailing hornbys 31 wich revealed a problem i hadn't honestly thaught about , as mine is going to be an early 80's machine the steps and boiler were going to be defunct items that needed filling and giving the fact i wasn't happy with paint progression colouring i decided to tackle the issue as well as some marks that were not noticed at the time



filler in the scratch marks



holes drilled for fibre optic lighting



chassis paint colours , my own mix base colour is at the bottom mixed from humbrol enamels the darker top colour is attelier interactives artist quality acrylic mars black



atellier mars black



at this point i have changed from using my nikon compact to using my nikon dslr because i can shoot in raw and bring out subtleties my nikon compact just cannot handle,,,,,, once chassis colour is painted and dry i used a wash of mars black to fill in further back areas wiping from higher areas with a tissue and damp cotton bud the result gives a depth to the detail

[tornado64]

at this point it is worth mentioning that sometimes panel lines etc are lost during filling and sanding i get round this problem by re scribing the panel lines for this i use the draper hook and pick set

[HARRYMALLARD]

keep up the brillant work !

[tornado64]

decided to add a shawplan fan and grille so fan area duly removed from body moulding now awaiting replacement items , i was in two minds wether to go this route as the lima moulding was actualy a pretty good work of art for a plastic moulding but as sound is a plan i felt it was a good way to go !!



the cab front has had scratch built washer boxes put on made from plasticard i have also scribed swage lines for a reason that will become apparent later also i have ordered lamp irons so this area will be sanded flat ready for the replacements