Firefly in the paintshop

A previous post mentioned how I used a printed tender wrapper on the Jupiter to more accurately represent the artwork on the locomotive. Since the success of that project, I'd been planning to update my 2-8-0 Consolidation, the Firefly, with a similar modification. 

The Firefly was my first attempt at kitbashing and some of my skills have since improved. Comparing the locomotive side by side with my more recent efforts made me want to have a second run at it. The areas I wanted to improve were mainly the tender, which had some poorly colour matched and ill-fitting decals and the cab, which had some shaky hand painting. 

The old Firefly - I feel my skills and techniques have improved I wanted to correct the poorly sized and coloured tender decals and hand-painted details on the locomotive, which were not sharp.

I started with the tender shell, giving it a bath in isopropyl alcohol (thanks Galen for the advice). Once the paint was removed, I repainted it with a darker shade of blue which more closely matches the Scottish blue of the decals. Like my other decals, I'm indebted to the artwork of John Ott. I've used the artwork for the Jupiter as the base, as I really enjoy the combinations of the dark blue and deep reds. I lengthened the artwork in Affinity Photo to create a tender wrapper in the right dimensions and found a font that closely matches the Jupiter's to write the name 'Firefly'. 

The tender after its alcohol bath before being tidied up. Not much to look at, but the red plastic is the lip from the IHC 4-4-0 tender. The rest is a Roundhouse 4-4-0 tender shell with a slice taken out the middle to lower it. 

The wrapper was printed on good quality, 80 gsm copier paper. Despite my initial concerns, with the Jupiter project, the copier paper worked really well for a wrapper. I found that long wrapper decals on decal paper had a tendency to stretch out of shape when wrapping around a tender if I wasn't careful. Copier paper doesn't have the same issue. The quality appears the same to me. I sized the decal to the same dimensions of the tender side so I do not have an issue with the raised edge. I touched up the edge of the paper wrapper (which is flush with the edge of tender) with the appropriate paint before applying the wrapper to the tender. To finish it off, the tender needed some foot stirrups. I harvested some off a surplus tender, painted and glued them on. 

I then turned my attention to the cab. I had a dilemma at this point. I really like wooden cabs, and three of my six locomotives are fitted with wooden cabs. It is probable that Jupiter's cab was not painted blue and had a varnished wood finish or was painted to look like faux wood (apparently common). This is the approach taken by John Ott for his locomotive art prints I have not yet repainted my Jupiter model and wondered about applying this colour scheme to Firefly's cab as well. In the end, I decided I would retain the blue and red scheme for the Firefly, resolving to repaint Jupiter someday. Otherwise almost all my locomotives would end up with wooden cabs. As much as I like them, it is nice to have variety.

The striping on the cab made from leftover red decals. 

So, the cab was also stripped and repainted. To do the red striping on the cab I tried applying paint to a flat piece of strip wood and then rubbed the wood over the raised details on the cab. This only applied paint to the very top of the edges but the finish was not as crisp as I wanted. After several attempts, I abandoned this approach and I cut up some red decals (on actual decal paper) into lengths and set them in place. A paper decal was used for the name board on the cab. To round it off, I placed some glazing in the forward cab windows. 

The tender with stirrups and the wrapper applied. The drivers were changed from Humbrol Red to Humbrol Scarlet.

I repainted the pilot, headlight and sand dome in the dark blue colour. I also applied a paper decal wrapper for the sand dome and on the headlight side panels. To finish the model off I repainted the drivers and the wheels in Humbrol Scarlet. This is brighter than the Humbrol Red I had used previously, which just seems to set off the rest of the locomotive. Final details included a bell cord (more about those later), whistle lever and I glued the engineer and fireman back in place. 

I think the final result looks pretty sharp and I'm very pleased with how it has turned out. The original locomotive was a bit scruffy, but the new version really stands out. Do you think the new colour scheme is an improvement? Have you ever returned to a project and refreshed it?

Firefly 2.0 - There is less red on the cab, but I feel this is balanced by the red on the headlight, dome and brighter red on the wheels.

The new Firefly on the trestle. 

Passenger cars, combines, decals and kitbashing...

I have six passenger cars on my layout, including three coaches, two combines and one baggage car. Four are finished in green, and one coach and one combine are finished in red.

I have been wanting to create decals for the red cars to depict the ornate Victorian guilt designs common at this time. So I spent some evenings on the computer and came up with the mocked up design below.

A Photoshop mock-up of the decals overlaid on the coach body.

A photoshop impression of a kitbashed baggage car.

I really like the look of the mock-up so will probably proceed with printing some decals for the coach. However, I don't know if a combine would be so intricately detailed. To me, combines are a practical compromise used on smaller trains. My railroad is a small railroad, but if I used baggage cars, I wonder if it would portray my line as busier and more important, further reinforcing the crucial role railroads played at this time?

So I'm tossing up whether to decorate the combine more modestly, or cut both my combines in half and cement the two baggage and coach sides together, turning the two combines into a coach and a baggage car.

One of the potential donor combines

 On one hand, two ornate red coaches would make a nice special train, which would pair nicely with a red baggage car if required. Doing this would enable me to run two passenger trains with three cars each (one baggage, two coaches) at once.

On the other hand, combines are useful for small local trains, but do I need two? I'm not sure. Kitbashing the two combines could sure be a fun project.

What do you think? I'm keen to hear your opinion on the artwork and the merits of baggage cars vs combines.

Tender wrappers and headlights

When I was installing the Tsunami 2 sound decoders, I made some adjustments to Jupiter and Firefly.

Jupiter was the only engine to keep her factory paint job (except for her boiler jacket). The artwork on her tender was not very detailed and I decided to replace it with artwork based on John Ott's locomotive fine art prints. I arranged the artwork in a 'tender wrapper'.  A single long piece of paper that would wrap around the Jupiter's tender and be trimmed to fit.

I tried printing the artwork on decal paper, following the same techniques I've used on all my previous tender artwork. However, I was not happy with the colour matching and ended up printing the wrapper onto plain copier paper. As this was all one piece and it followed the outline of the tender it fitted in inconspicuously.

Below are before and after photos of the Jupiter. There is alot more detail in the new artwork, the filigree is more intricate and the guilt shines brighter.

Research conducted by John and other locomotive historians seems to indicate the Jupiter had either a plain varnished wood cab or the cab was painted to represent varnished wood, with artificial wood grain painted on, which was apparently, a fashion trend at the time. The pilot and sand domes were possibly also red. At some stage it is likely I change these details on my model but for now I'm enjoying the new tender artwork.

Jupiter with her original tender artwork as delivered from the manufacturer (Though, the boiler is painted in this photo.)

Jupiter wearing her new tender wrapper, based on John Ott's artwork.

Firefly was my first kitbashed locomotive. It was also the first I repainted and made custom decals for and it shows a bit in the final finish. When I did the original kitbash I did not add a lighted headlight. Instead I painted the inside of the light silver to represent the reflector. The headlight also did not have a lens.

The headlights used in 1895 are oil lamps, which would burn whale oil or something similar. This was expensive and therefore railroads would only light the headlights for night running. Even though my trains don't run at night, I found I enjoy running with lights on, as I feel it adds some life to the locomotive. I justify their use due to the many tunnels on my layout. 

When I added the Tsunami 2 to Firefly, I decided to finish the job properly and add an LED to the headlight. I also made a lens for the housing using acetate. 

I liked the original sunflower style stack that came with the original IHC locomotive shell, but I always felt it was a bit thick looking. In any case it had to be removed to access the headlight and when I reassembled the locomotive I tried out a Congdon and diamond stack for looks. In the end I settled on the diamond stack. 

Firefly with her original sunflower stack and dummy headlight.

Test fitting the Congdon stack. 

Firefly fitted with her functioning headlight and diamond stack.

When I get around to it, I'll find a good plastic friendly paint stripper and remove the paintwork on Firefly's cab and tender and start again. I'll definitely redo the tender artwork and use a similar method to what I used for the Jupiter.

I'm interested to hear which stack you prefer on the Firefly, the Sunflower, Congdon or Diamond? If you can suggest any good plastic friendly paint strippers I'd love to know.