Fowler Painting Begun

After enjoying building parts for the cab interior, I have now set out to paint the loco. Not something many will notice afterwards as the loco obviously is already painted. Handling and working on the loco has created scratches, and the many added exterior details, although given a first treatment of paint back in August, could use a proper repaint. Now the loco is dismantled for fitting the cab details and repainting.  

Cleaned up work area with parts for the cab interior. After vacuuming the workbench, painting of the Fowler can now begin.

One of the first things I changed on the Fowler was lowering the buffer height to fit Nystrup Gravel's skips. With the buffers lowered the old mounting hole became visible. I thought the partly visible hole would be a good illustration of narrow gauge industrial locomotives' flexibility. I drilled two holes for the mounting bolts in each buffer plate and painted the area, where the buffers would have been located when mounted higher with a mix of red/brown colours to illustrate the original primer. The area was masked off with Tamiya masking tape. Then buffer plates and buffers were air brushed Vallejo Air 'Ferrari Red'. Removing the masking tape revealed the primer colour as if the buffers had been lowered without anyone taking the trouble to overpaint the area with red.

Painting in progress. Rear buffer beam screwed off for ease of drilling and painting. Coupling rods have received the first layer of red paint.

Buffers are fitted after painting, frames painted 'Black Grey' and rods and counterweights painted red. The cab floor has had its first layers of paints, the brake coloumn is fitted - and I found the hand tools I've been looking for!

Gear lever subassembly and instrument panel glued in place and cab interior having its first layer of weathering applied. The traces of the buffer's higher mounting for the loco's original customer can be seen.

My trusty German Gabbert airbrush from the late 1990's has developed some bad manners that I will have to look into before I can paint the upper body. Until then I can't fit window glazing and get the final things in the cab glued in place. While getting the airbrush in shape again, I'm placing the Fowler on the shelf. Hopefully not for long!