After a small interlude to try my hand at building pointwork it is back to the long term project of the 72xx. More track work will follow, but that will have to wait until after Doncaster now - I'll pick up some more C&L components there.

My PDK 72xx has moved on a bit, the lamp refuge and the lance cock have been added, it was given two coats of etch primer, from a spray can and the footplate and smokebox have been spray with Halfords matt black. So the project for Sunday was to spray the main body.

I happened to have a can of Phoenix Precision GWR green, so I thought this would be the quickest route to getting the main body colour on and I could put off still further breaking out that new airbrush I had for Christmas in 2010!

I duly masked off the model, spent what seemed like an age shaking the spray can, that had been stored outside down, I did a test spray onto newspaper. The can spluttered and splattered paint, not a good start. Off with the nozzle and a good clean, still no better, and then it stopped all together. The can was empty, now what?

My excuse for not using the airbrush is the lack of a spray booth, and given it is too cold outside at the moment to think of sitting patiently with an airbrush, I decided to take the easy approach, pack up and have a cup of coffee instead.

I did decide to use the time to spray over the railbus with Testors Dullcoat, in order to try to blend the very shinny transfers in. I can't say that has worked however, they are still as prominent.

After consuming said cup of coffee I decided this was a feeble approach, and I remembered that I had some acrylics that I had purchased at Warley, the British Railway colours pack, so I might give those a try. But would the finish be good enough for my prized model that I have spent 2 years building? I also have a number of Parkside wagons, that received a coat of primer about 6 months ago, I could practice on those. The acrylics would not smell like enamels, so I could get away with using a corner of the kitchen.

So out came the compressor and new airbrush; problem number 1, the hose on the compressor was the wrong fit for the airbrush. Plus I have a mini-regulator I have never fitted. So out come an assortment of connectors and hoses in an attempt to get the airbrush connected to the compressor. After much fiddling and a little bit of vocabulary extending, I had a setup that appeared to work. A quick check on here for topics on spraying acrylics, Lifecolor in this case, I had a 50/0 mix of paint the Lifecolor thinners, a low air pressure and the moment had arrived. There was nothing more that to press that button and start the air flow.

A quick spray onto some newspaper revealed to me just how controllable my new Iwata airbrush was, but also how translucent the paint was as well. Never mind, I had read this was he case and that it would need several coats. So in I went and sprayed two wagons, it didn't take long and was was duly cleaning the airbrush, running first thinners and then airbrush cleaner through it.

A couple of hours later I repeated the procedure, and now I have two wagons with a passable interpretation of bauxite. They still need at least one more coat, the grey of the primer - yes, I know, it would have been better to use red oxide - still shows through in places. A very matt finish, great for a goods wagon, but I will need to do something about transfers if they are going to stick well.

As for my 72xx, well it has masking tape on it, but still no green paint, maybe later this week.