In search of Carriage Brown

[Dr. Bond of the DVLR]

It has been a long held yearning of mine to align the, currently dorment, DVLR's carriage stock livery more closely with our the GER's.
For DVLR's marks 1 and 2 the carriage livery was "Olive and Elm" which was, I think quite attractive and distinctive. It was originally intended to suit the DVLR's original loco scheme of brick red with yellow lining. As time passed and I painted more of the locos into GER blue, however the thought of teak carriages was never far away. Teak, however, is a tricky old thing to get "right" and to strip all the paint off the existing carriages to varnish them is unthinkable, however, the GER had a trick up their sleeve, after 12 years or so of re-varnishing teak carriages they would give up and paint the carriage "teak colour" or Stratford Carriage Brown. This is a mid brown. As if to apologise for the downgrade, they lined the carriages with chrome yellow around the quarter lights and black around the waist panels (for those done in a certain panelling style). I've been having a go at applying this to an old GRS W and U carriage side as a test. I'll strip it back and do it properly after.
According to the excellent book "The liveries of pre-grouping railways volume 2" By Nigel J. L. Digby, Carriage brown is best matched to BS 381 489 "Leaf Brown".
A bit of searching gave humbrol enamel no. 9 "Tan" and Revell acylic No. 80 "Mud Brown" as the closest matches so I have tried them.
In thirds, left to right: Humbrol no. 9, Revell acylic No. 80 (both no primer) and far right is Revell acrylic No. 80 on grey primer. The two paints are strikingly different colours with the No. 9 being too light and too glossy when applied - really a little too Annie and Clarabel for my liking! It went on a lot more nicely than the acrylic but the acrylic did dry into a much smoother surface than the enamel. The chrome yellow lining really "pops" against the darker brown.

I then, as you can see, had a go at applying the lining using gloss enamels and a lining pen. My word that is tricky! First attempts (left, on the Tan) were rather wobbly. Second attempt (middle) the paint was too thick, then too thin so the lines became too wide. Third attempt on the right was starting to approach acceptable, certainly applying the 6ft rule. I tried building an edge follower onto the pen but that made the lines worse in my opinion. Those who line their locos and stock have my admiration!

To cap it off, I think I'll go for the scheme shown against the reference I am working from in the book - it is fairly close I think. What do you think?

[ge_rik]

I then, as you can see, had a go at applying the lining using gloss enamels and a lining pen. My word that is tricky! First attempts (left, on the Tan) were rather wobbly. Second attempt (middle) the paint was too thick, then too thin so the lines became too wide. Third attempt on the right was starting to approach acceptable, certainly applying the 6ft rule. I tried building an edge follower onto the pen but that made the lines worse in my opinion. Those who line their locos and stock have my admiration!

Oh..... The Goldilocks Effect. I think we've all been there with some aspect of our modelling but in my case I've steered well clear of lining. I have a really good Wild Swan book explaining how to do it, but never yet given it a try.

Rik

PS Great to see GER livery .... I think I'll resist the teak temptation though

[philipy]

I then, as you can see, had a go at applying the lining using gloss enamels and a lining pen. My word that is tricky! First attempts (left, on the Tan) were rather wobbly. Second attempt (middle) the paint was too thick, then too thin so the lines became too wide.

Overall, I think your final version looks pretty good, certainly in the photos.

A little tip, from my 4mm days, when using a bow pen....thin enamels with a tiny drop of Linseed Oil. It thins it but doesn't dry out quickly, so you get better and more even flow. It does however take a day or two for the paint to harden, so its a question of doing a bit and leaving it to dry before handling.

I did mention this once before on here and got poopooed, but it does work if you have the patience to wait.

BTW, congrats on your PhD and welcome back.

[GTB]

I then, as you can see, had a go at applying the lining using gloss enamels and a lining pen. My word that is tricky! First attempts (left, on the Tan) were rather wobbly. Second attempt (middle) the paint was too thick, then too thin so the lines became too wide. Third attempt on the right was starting to approach acceptable, certainly applying the 6ft rule. I tried building an edge follower onto the pen but that made the lines worse in my opinion. Those who line their locos and stock have my admiration!

I usually aim for a slightly lighter shade on models than the prototype shade, but finishing with a satin varnish clear coat lightens the colour anyway. I've never liked/used gloss on small models, although it looks OK on the 12" models I've painted. Lining is a lot easier in that scale as well..........

I assume your description 'lining pen' is one of the tubular pen type? I bought one many years ago but at that time I was working in HO and I found the tubular pen was very touchy about how the paint was thinned. By the time the paint was thin enough to flow through the pen, it would proceed to spread out on the model and made the line much too wide.

The photo below shows my current lining tool kit reading left to right. Not that I do a lot of lining, as Aust. railways didn't use lining much after WW1.

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The first implement is a draughtsman's 'ruling pen'. Known to most of the world as a ruling pen, less commonly as an inking pen, or a drawing pen. Never have found out where railway modellers came up with the name 'bow pen' for these. The one in the photo is part of an 80 year old set of drafting instruments made in the US during WW2.

The second implement is known as a 'bow pen' in the US, but apparently as an 'ink spring bow' to english speakers. It's a small spring bow compass with a fixed ink pen and is part of the same drafting set as the ruling pen. I've replaced the point with a piece of brass rod which has been rounded off to stop it scratching paint. I use it when I need to rule a line close to an edge. Especially useful when lining the side of a cab, as it will easily follow the curves of the cab cutout, or put a line parallel to window frames.

The small brush with the cream handle is a 5/0 brush that I use mainly for the curved corners of a panel line.

The next implement is a mapping pen. These are still made for calligraphy and art use, although I'd imagine they haven't been used for drawing maps since Adam was in short pants....... Although designed for ink, it will happily draw a short fine line using Humbrol enamel. It will get into corners where there isn't a hope of getting a ruling pen. I've still got the two I bought 50 years ago and they were all I used on HO models for many years. Probably used more for lettering than for lining, as there were no suitable transfers back then.

The second brush is a #2 brush that I use for cleaning up lumps and bumps in lines if necessary. My hands aren't that steady now, so it sees a bit more use than the mapping pen.........

The last is a cheap plastic 6" ruler, with a couple of pieces of polystyrene sheets glued on the back to ensure that paint won't seep under the edge when ruling a line. On uneven surfaces a couple of small blobs of Blu-Tack will keep it from sliding around if necessary.

I've never had much success with acrylics, so now use enamel when lining and use it straight out of the tin to get the narrowest possible line. In the past, most of the fine lining I did in HO was white and I found Winsor & Newton white drawing ink was actually more dense than enamel and gave a finer line. Back then, I'd have been using a mapping pen. I've also used artist's Gouache for lining, which worked OK, but required more fiddling around thinning it and I went back to using white ink. Coloured inks are too transparent for lining, but Gouache colours could be OK.


The following links are to a website and a Youtube video on the care and feeding of ruling pens. Not specific to model railways, but the best info I've seen on sharpening the pens and choosing a decent one.

https://www.drawingislamicgeometricdesi ... uling-pens
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BAbgMexaUg

If like me you prefer to learn from the printed page, the book I found most useful was 'Painting and Lining In the Smaller Scales', by Steve Barnfield, Irwell Press, 1994. Long out of print, but there are usually a few copies listed on ABE Books.

Regards,
Graeme

[Soar Valley Light]

The final attempt looks great Zach, well done. I like the livery more than I thought I would when I read the description.

SVLR Andrew

[Dr. Bond of the DVLR]

Cheers all and thank you so much GTB for the look through your tools of the trade. I'll keep an eye out for a bow pen to have a go with. I've never heard of a mapping pen before, that sounds ideal! The trick with the plasticard on the back of the ruler is also excellent - thanks I'll be sure to give that a go.
It is interesting, some have recomended thinning with lighter fuel to make the paint dry quicker - philipy recomends linseed oil to make it dry slower (which would be my preference!). Perhaps I should stick to white spirit in the middle of those drying times!
This is what I always loved about the forum - loads of great advice from different angles!

[GTB]

I've never found it necessary to thin Humbrol to use it in a ruling pen.

If you want to add linseed oil, use what is known as 'boiled linseed oil'. It isn't actually boiled, but it has driers added, so it dries in weeks, not months........

I can't think of any reason to use lighter fluid in paint. I did try it once and the low surface tension meant the line just spread out on the painted surface.

My locos usually have brass bodywork and being impatient I give each colour 30 min in an oven at 100degC., that way I can line a loco in one session. Not recommended for models containing plastic or wood.......

I found it hard to find individual good quality ruling pens, although they do turn up. The best source seems to be technical drawing sets made in the '30s and '40s, which will have one or two ruling pens and a spring bow pen, as well as the usual compasses and dividers. In the UK I'd imagine Thornton would be the commonest reasonable quality brand and they made three grades at that time, Minerva, Tech-Set and Jay-Wess. There are now collectors of drawing instruments, so old sets aren't as cheap as they once were.

Any decent art supply store should have mapping pens, or the same thing under a different name, in the calligraphy section.

Modern ruling pens are widely available online and cheap, but aren't properly sharpened and are stainless steel, which doesn't hold a good edge anyway. OK for art use, but lousy for lining models. Been there, done that.........

Ruling pens made for drawing office use were made from a high quality tool steel, which holds a good edge if sharpened carefully. The best quality ones had HSS, or carbide, tips and wear very well, but are rare.

I taught myself lining using Steve Barnfield's book, bought when it was first published. Thirty odd years later I'm starting to get the hang of it. 'They' say practice make perfect.........

Regards,
Graeme

[Dr. Bond of the DVLR]

Well, to revive an old thread - Things have been happening!
An ebay find of a small 4 wheel post office van gave me a useful model to try out a vehicle in the Revell Aqua Colour "Mud Brown" with yellow lining. The van has been lovingly made but was too tall so I cut about 1.5 cm off its height. I reminds me of the luggage vans used on the W and U.
I think it looks well enough in the Stratford carriage brown and the brown/varnished carriage rake was starting to look good so I went about painting a carriage from a Bachman tram conversion in it (I'll write about that in another thread) and that gave me the confidence to return to the poor W and U carriage. Both can be seen in this photo:

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The GRS W and U carriage shown in the first post on this thread was picked up at the Peterborough (possibly 8 years ago) show as a box of bits for £10 - my friend Theo picked up the other one that was on the Member to Member stand. He got started on his but, not satisfied with the out-of-squareness of it tried to straighten the sides of his with some heat. In doing so he managed to parallelogram the windows and snap some of the window uprights on one side.
I took the wrecked side from him and had a look at what was salvageable. As I like a challenge I gave him my good, unpainted side and embarked on making a shorter version out of the remaining "carriage rubble".

IMG_20260301_184020.jpg (3.82 MiB) Viewed 1104 times

[Dr. Bond of the DVLR]

The W and U had 4 wheel balcony carriages (Henrietta from TTTE) and later, longer bogie balcony carriages (the carriage in the Titfield Thunderbolt) so a shortened version wouldn't look too odd (although I had to accept that the beading and ventilator arrangement would be wrong and I would probably put mine on bogies anyway). I started to work out how many windows I could get away with and this is what I came up with:

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With much careful cutting with a jeweller's saw (only recently bought one and wonder how on earth I managed before!) and filing the parts started to come together, they were epoxied onto wooden batons to provide strength to the franken-carriage. There then followed quite a lot of fillering and sanding!

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I then drew up and laser cut a new plywood floor and internal partition to give a first and a third class compartment and add a bit more strength to the finished thing.

[Dr. Bond of the DVLR]

The whole thing is square but, owing to inconsistencies in the resin castings, the internal partition sits at a slight angle, but not too bad given the size of the cut and shut job. More filler and sanding epoxy glue and the carriage was assembled into a shell, primed and air-brushed in carriage brown.

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In the mean time, shorter bogies than the ones it came with, were bought from Brandbright. I think it will just "get away" with being a bogie carriage. The roof was cut down to length, the underneath was filed away to accommodate the new wooden beams and some end roof supports were LASER cut. It is now looking much less like carriage rubble and almost as if it was worth going to all the trouble

IMG_20260731_175745.jpg (3.27 MiB) Viewed 1090 times

[ge_rik]

I can see the inspiration for its design (W&U and Titfield).
Looks great.

Rik

[philipy]

On the subject of "Brown" ( or any other colour), we are looking to get our 75y/o driveway gate refurbished and had a chap round this morning to look at it. He pointed me in the direction of their website and colour charts to decide what colour we wanted and in general chat he mentioned that they do a lot of business with modellers who want a specific colour.
I've just had a look at their colour charts and they claim 50,000 different colours! They do paint in cans and also do aerosol acrylics and enamels in a range of finishes from full gloss to full matt. Their prices don't seem unreasonable for a custom order, at about £13 +VAT for a 400ml aerosol.
I must stress that I haven't actually tried it but he appeared genuine enough, and very pleasant to deal with.

https://onestopaerosols.co.uk