I picked up this Mica B a couple of years ago on ebay, did nothing with it until this week.
This is the model in its original unpainted condition, mine was grubbier than this. The first thing I did was to remove the existing lettering then dismantled the model, sprayed the underframe black and painted the brake handle white.
After this I added bearings to the little plastic inserts and fixed some extra ballast in the way of lead strip. The underframe is a one piece metal casting and the inserts provide a way of installing the wheel sets as there is no way that the axle boxes can be bent out to slip them in place.
After this attention turned to the body which received a couple of coats of white while the roof was repainted grey, followed by painting the detail on the door fasteners, handles and the steps on the ends.
Next came the transfers, with which I copied the livery of the Mica B at the Severn Valley Railway.
Romford vac pipes were added as were the coupling hooks ready for some Smiths Mk 2 screw link couplings. Finally the grab rails were repositioned, the cast instruction plates on the ends of the van were painted red and new wheel sets were fitted.
Obviously this won't pass as a fine scale model but I have enjoyed the detailing process and breathing some new life into this RTR offering.
No comments:
Post a Comment