For a long while, I've been after a City of Liverpool - a rare locomotive that was produced towards the end of Hornby Dublo's existence and in good condition they fetch some very interesting sums of money.
Now I can't afford a boxed version, plus I have no use for the box. If I buy a playworn / spares or repairs version I'll have to repaint it for it to be up to exhibition standards. So the dilemma I was faced with was why bother paying over the odds for the nameplates and body numbers (when I'll have to remove them to repaint) why not just restore an old City of London locomotive as the body is the same. I'm not looking to make a perfect replica, just something that looks good on the layout. I know from the previous Atholl and 0-6-2 tank restoration projects that the maroon paintwork can be matched with relative accuracy and, now that my painting skills have evolved a bit, time for something a little more challenging...
Up in the roof, I found a spare London body but the chassis was recycled long ago, possibly into City of Birmingham I can't quite remember, so I took to the usual internet auction site and found this:
It's a London, it's tatty, there's lots of paint missing along with the tender decals. The tender itself looks to have been hand painted at some point. I didn't need the body but there's enough paint to do them both, so I'll be looking to produce two City of... locomotives in due course.
For the best finish, the prep work has to be perfect and the easiest solution is to go right back to bare metal and paint from scratch. Normally this involves oven cleaner, sanding and using the sanding attachment on the Dremel - this leads to varying results, the oven cleaner method normally leaves bits behind, the Dremel method can, if not careful, lead to some of the mouldings being ground away.
As I have the new bench grinder and as it came with two wire brush attachments, I decided to experiment...
It's a good, clean finish and left the body undamaged. After some more brushing of the front of the loco, the body & tender were primed..
City vs City - after applying satin black all over (the red goes over the top to darken it) the result is probably one of the best paint finishes that I've ever managed to produce!
It's tempting to call a halt now and make this a black loco with suitable transfers (I might do this with the other body yet!) but the ambition is still to make a Liverpool, so for now this will be left to harden before I mask the body ready for red paint.
I'm not in the habit of producing fakes and certainly would never intend to sell this once finished, it's purely for my collection.
More to follow...
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