John Cutler
I decided upon acrylic paint for the floor and non-smoking saloon seats. The brush strokes tend to show up slightly. This helps to make the floor colour slightly uneven with only one coat. It tends to show an uneven surface on the red seats even after 2 coats and that helps create the illusion of fabric. Excess paint in the wrong place can be scraped off with a small blunt screwdriver. Mixed paint can be stored overnight by adding a drop or two of water and sealing under clingfilm. For the seats I used approximately 70% carmine red and 30% mixing white, The floor is roughly 80% pale umber, 15% raw sienna plus 5% vermillion (and probably would be better with a bit more raw sienna).
Overpainting the seats red seems to make them larger than their blue counterparts. It could be the extra layer of paint but I suspect it is an optical illusion. Eliminating the glossy white floor makes the interior a bit duller. To compensate for that I painted the interior roof white, which replicates the real thing; this should lift any gloom. I wonder if Bachmann decided on a white floor to reflect the proposed lighting?
I had to chop 4mm off the poor driver’s legs to fit him in at an acceptable height. As he is standing, I pinned him to the floor rather than rely on glue. Footless passengers await painting. Some of them will be decapitated as well! To replicate the mid 50s to early 60s, I need men with hats and ladies with hats or head-scarves so some of these heads will be swapped with Dapol figures. One issue I will probably not resolve is that more people wore glasses in that era; there were no contact lens. Andy Farquarson, Iain Rice’s co-editor at MORILL, managed to fabricate these (back in 1994) so it is possible. Will the lack of them be noticeable inside a coach’s glazing?
