Castle

Hi Matt, Sorry to hear that the success is tinged with sadness like that. Please accept my condolences. The way to look at it is I suppose that you are now creating some happy memories for the family you still have by achieving this success at a time when I suspect that you are still feeling your loss quite keenly. All the best, Castle

Hi Matt, I saw that a certain Bluebell fan had got himself into a magazine... Well done! All the best, Castle

Hi N15, That is looking like a model of a Modified Hall and not a dip painted blob as it did - great stuff! No. 6990 Witherslack Hall has been in Lined black in preservation and it looks like a well researched job too having had a nose through Google images. I hope this helps! All the best, Castle

Hi Rob, Cheers! Now Hornby has obliged, the Star hauled Supers looks like a really obtainable prospect! When you do it, make sure there are pictures of it on RMWEB for us to enjoy! I haven't been on the roof of Centenary Diner No. 9635 (yet!) so I don't know what that one is like at all. The roof on No. 9112 is much plainer so will be a bit easier. All the best, Castle

Hi Kev, I have just followed your link and looked at that again - cracking bit of work it is too. I do like the look of the older panelled trailers. I am hoping that a kit of No. 92 will find its way out soon as she is back in traffic again. No. 92 was a very late withdrawal so she fits into Little Didcot's era beautifully. Then I will just need a model of No. 93 as No. 212 and I have the set! Perhaps if you have a MONSTER order of solder and flux, you should be modelling something in diagram P.18? I'll get my coat... All the best, Castle

Hi Kev, The GWR Super Saloons - the Ferrero Rocher of coaches... I had built a lot of No. 9118 alongside No. 111 as I mentioned earlier so that I could experiment with the couplings before any paint went anywhere near anything. I just wanted to 'finish' No. 111 on Little Didcot before I started posting about the saloons. Thanks for the kind comments! All the best, Castle

Part 2 This was then carved back on the outside to shape and repeated 3 more times! The under frame was next. First a little tip for those building Comet kits and wondering how to fit buffer beams - Blu Tac and drills to the rescue! The usual mix of the contents of the Dart Castings website was spread in a thin layer over the bottom of the underframe... ...as were the gas tanks from Comet - this first attempt resulted in them being a bit too high up - D'oh! I then fitted the roof extrusion. This was where I deviated from the Comet instructions a bit. I like to, where possible, have the roof as a separate piece for lazy masking and easy finishing. The inference from the Comet instructions is that the roof should sit between the the two end castings. A quick check on the real thing lead to the realisation that the roof goes straight through without any sort of shaping on the ends. To replicate this I trimmed the tops of the ends down so the roof sat over the top of them and then shaped the ends of the roof to match the ends of the coach. A bit of a fiddle but worth it in the end I think. The bogies have been built here too with the groovy little end steps on them. There is lots of detail on the roof of No. 9118 so I went up and took a terrible reference picture while one of the C&W gang looked on to ensure my safety. I started with the ventilators as they could be used as points of reference. Then the ribs went on with the handles and water tanks. The first of the kitchen fans also went on and finally the other kitchen ventilators and the electrical conduit. Modellers wanting to do these in a later than me format should be aware that BR fitted pipes to the roof tanks that lead from the old filler to the end of the coach so they could be filled from the ground making the roof even more complicated! The long process of masking, painting and transfers has started and is ongoing as I write this. That will do for now! All the best, Castle

Hi All, A super size post for some Super Saloons! A lot can be said about the GWR Super Saloons. They are iconic vehicles, they echo the GWR to a tee, they recall a golden age of rail travel and so on but for me its just the sheer presence and quality of these vehicles that is truly remarkable. They have an imposing bulk to them when seen from the outside, their bodies built to the maximum of the GWR's generous 9' 6" loading gauge and necessitating the angled door panels at the ends just like on the Centenary stock. This restricted their use but gave full licence to the interior designers. The interiors are stunning with intricate panelling, fine furniture making and high quality timbers. 8 of these coaches were built in 1932 between Diagrams G.60 & G. 61. They were built for use on the GWR's top passenger services, being involved with VIP and royal travel (hence the names) as well as more usually the ocean liner boat trains between Paddington and Plymouth. As the liner traffic to Plymouth switched to Southampton, the Super Saloons found gainful employment on the trains to Newbury Races amongst other VIP duties. They were available for hire for private parties and could be attached to a train if travelling with the usual riff-raff in regular first class simply wouldn't do... They were kept at the bottom end of the Old Oak Common carriage shed and were on standby for immediate use. Their position in the shed it is said also kept them under the direct gaze of the Carriage Inspector, ensuring their position at the top of the rolling stock pile. The charge for travelling in these coaches when they were first released into traffic was a ten shilling supplement ABOVE the normal 1st. class fare. This is more than it cost to ride the equivalent Pullman services in the UK at the time and would have cost more than even a ride on the LNER's Silver Jubillie! They really were the ultimate in luxury rail travel in an era of luxury rail travel. Built to Dia. G.60, No. 9112 Queen Mary was the second of the first two Super Saloons built and these had the added distinction of having interiors fitted by master furniture makers Trollpe & Co. this is a tour de force of woodworking in French polished walnut with book matched burr veneers on the internal sliding doors, delicate mouldings and a vaulted ceiling in the compartments. There are two main compartments and a 4 seat Coupe with a toilet at each end. It isn't exactly clear why this was not perpetuated in the other 6 but it is suspected that when the bill for them came into Swindon and the money men had picked themselves off the floor, the task for the next 6 interiors was quietly passed to a combination of Trollope & Co AND the Swindon men... Although tired in places, the air of quality in this untouched period interior still shines through when you walk into No. 9112. Built to Dia. G.61, No. 9113 Prince of Wales was the third Super Saloon to be built and the first to receive a Swindon interior. They also went with a French polished walnut interior but this is a slightly different dark English type with gold leaf outlining. The interior layout is the same as that for No. 9112 with movable winged chairs and tables in the main saloons. There is a gallery of period travel photographs on the pillars between the windows and the ceiling is of a more standard coach roof shape. The last of the super saloons built was No. 9118 Princess Elizabeth. This was built, like No. 9113 to Dia. G.61 but in 1937 underwent conversion to Dai. H. 46. This saw the removal of the coupe and one of the toilets and in their place a small kitchen facility was fitted. This removed the need for an additional kitchen vehicle to be fitted to a pure Super Saloon train, only a brake vehicle was needed as a Super Brake was never produced. The kitchen is as it was installed in 1937 and, as far as is ascertainable without risking actually firing it up, still in working order. All 8 saloons were refurbished after the Second World War and this involved new carpets, upholstery, windows and deeper ventilators. Upon nationalisation, they lost their names and were painted in the blood & custard livery. The small gap between the gutters and the top of the window meant that the top crimson stripe was omitted and just the lining was applied. This was true again when they went into chocolate & cream in 1957. Only No. 9111 King George ever received the later maroon livery. No. 9115 Duke of Gloucester and No. 9117 Princess Royal (which had the H.45 kitchen conversion) were withdrawn in October 1965 and were sadly scrapped. The other coaches (including No. 9111 and No. 9116 Duchess of York now at the South Devon Railway) were thankfully preserved in 1967 and the GWS trio moved to Didcot in 1976. There is a long term project to return the Didcot 3 to full working order and their original splendour. This is an exacting and difficult job, made all the more tricky by the need to preserve those amazing period interiors. Currently No. 9113 is in the works and is progressing well. The structure of the coach was found to be pretty good and the few structural repairs that were required have now been completed. The body has also had its steel panelling replaced and covered in the first few layers of paint. As can be seen from the photographs, it is currently up in the air, having its under frame and bogies attended to. The first bogie is nearly finished and it won't be long until the second is dismantled to commence its restoration. Then the long and painstaking process of reassembly and refinishing can begin. And then it has to be done twice more. The next will be No. 9118 leaving the greatest challenge - the Trollope & Co. interior in No. 9112 - until last. As you can imagine, this will take a while but eventually the Super Saloons will rise again and the main demonstration line will once again host wine and dine trains so we can all experience the glamour and luxury of these coaches. This is one of Didcot's designated special projects (like Nos. 4079 and 2999) and as a result it is the subject of an ongoing appeal, the details of which can be found on the Didcot Railway Centre website. The models are all from the Comet stable and the first thing that struck me when I received the box with little No. 9118 in was the weight of it! Curious, I have worked out that the whole train of K.41 full brake, Siphon G, 3 Super Saloons and the Hornby Hawksworth K. 45 full brake will come in at about 2.5 kilograms! I hope the Hornby Castle is up to it... The plan is as follows. I would build No. 9118 first as I needed to check the interaction between the couplings, the tightest radius track and the coaches. This would then let me see how this type of coach would go together and as No. 9118 was the most complex of the lot then the others should be easy... It seemed fairly similar to the regular Comet square end coach build. The one are where it did differ of course was on those unusual ends and having studied the diagrams and parts, it seemed to me that this was the trickiest bit. Therefore I started by working towards that. The rest I have done before so it won't hold any fears. The first job was to prepare the end etchings. After the holes were drilled out and it was cleaned, I started with the captive nut and the drop lights. The rest was then folded up and soldered together. The sides were also prepared for action too. I then needed to get the under frame to a stage whereby it could serve as a jig. To do this the upper two folds were done and soldered in place. Then the ends were bolted in place. As this is No. 9118, it has drop lights in the sides around the kitchen compartments so those were soldered in place. The gutters were folded over and soldered too. Yes - I hadn't noticed that I had missed the hinges at this point - I did later though... Now for the tricky bit - there are no tabs to join the sides to the ends and it requires very careful positioning to get it right. To be fair, it is difficult to see how else to do it given the shape. After thinking about it, I decided to solder the joint in place with higher temperature solder and then reinforce and fill it front and back with low melt solder. More in Part 2...

Hi Kev, That is the great thing about the SRM - it sounds like a good GWR loco should and what it sounds like its doing and what It is actually doing with those little wheels is two entirely different things. It sounds the business on the main demonstration line at Didcot and doesn't have to be pushed hard or fast to do it. Get it out on a railway proper and away you go... Magic! All the best, Castle

Hi Ray & Polly, Well, that is something you don't see every day... Fantastic footage of the SMU there - brilliant! Myself and the guys at Didcot are really looking forward to it coming home. I hope you two are going to be 'on shed' at 81E again this year sometime as well! All the best, Castle

Hi Miss P, A short lived aberration? I don't know... It is fast coming up that No. 6023 has been in blue in preservation as long as it was in service so I will give you short lived... Right, that picture is exactly the sort of thing I'm waffling about. Spot on. Your and Stationmaster Mike's comments about 'just because it was eligible for a livery' is very true. This is the reason I chose to model this era - because of the BLEND of different styles of livery, not because I wanted to do only Early BR liveries. A mix of late GWR - even on the coaches with GWR insignia 'painted out' - and early BR, up to the lion and wheel is my turf of choice because it speaks so much about this era of great change on the railways. No. 3822 was reported in a GWR livery in the very early 1950s for example and No. 6697 was wearing Egyptian Serif at the same time. lovely stuff! And yes, I will be robing the collectors market of a Hornby blue No. 6023 for detailing and improvement purposes! Mike's comment about being careful about preservation liveries is true too - especially with things like rolling stock (double especially freight wagons) where the evidence simply isn't there to say yes or no to a particular scheme. Sometimes careful sanding back can reveal stuff before overhaul but not always. One member of the C&W gang is drooling over attacking No. 1363s tanks with a sanding disc to cut back through the history when we start replacing the metal there so I will post results if anyone is interested but that won't be for a while yet. The Saints listed in GWW as having received lined black are Nos. 2920/6/7/34/7/45/7/9/54 from February 1949 and none lasted long enough to go lined green again. The rest were not recorded as being repainted before withdrawal or were simply withdrawn. There is also mention of 49XX No.6990 which remained lined green throughout and a number of 'should have been unlined black' that were lined black. These are Nos. 1503-5/4702/8762-4/71/3. All the best, Castle

Hi All, The White Gill Sans BRITISH RAILWAYS was also on a number (if not most?) of the Blue Kings until the introduction of the lion and wheel. The Griffon is right in that it was the only complete class to receive the Blue but I disagree with everyone's assessment of it - it think No. 6023 looks very smart indeed in person. Cue the howls of derision and horror... Don't you just love a livery debate?! I think that there is another list of repainted Saints in GWW - I will look it up tonight unless someone else gets there first... All the best, Castle

Hi All, Coach kind of beat me to it here but there are quite a few pictures in the very early BR days, depicting locos with a lack of tender or tank insignia. There is a picture of such hallowed machines as a certain No. 4079 with a plain but lined (if you see what I mean) tender in the (I think) colour rail collection. The reason i was given is that there were never any transfers produced for the Egyptian Serif BRITISH RAILWAYS insignia and therefore it was sign written where used. This meant if an engine was needed back in service quick, it went without. I hope this adds to the picture! All the best, Castle

Hi Missy, That is just stunning work - I look forward to seeing this at an exhibition one day soon! We must discuss coach buffers at some point too... All the best, Castle

Hi All, A Visitor from Brum... No. 5043 came through yesterday on a tour and had an hours stop at Didcot. Naturally, all the Didcot volunteers went out to say hello to Bob, Alistair and the rest of the gang and have a chat. A quick picture was snapped of this fine locomotive for Little Didcot just before she got the road: Enjoy! All the best, Castle

Hi 69843, I have never served in the navy at all, I come from a family of sailors! I am a land lubber so that explains the dryness... The answer is still no. Hi Nick, Thanks for that - I figured that someone such as yourself would be able to sort us out here! All the best, Castle

Hi All, Thanks for all the likes and kind comments everyone! Mikkel: La la la la la... Only Joking! I am full of useful phrases like that - its the product of coming from a family that served in the Royal Navy. A slightly 'oblique' and very dry sense of humour! Rob: That is a key phrase that I have used a great deal (albeit in a more 'family friendly' version!) because doing really is key to learning how to do this stuff! 69843: I did the Siphon a while ago and just had a bit of tweaking to do to get it to run with Nos. 111 & 9118. Thanks for the kind words! And no, you can't... Sorry! Farren: At 81E the track on the mixed gauge stuff is all the bridge rail stuff as you describe and the speeds are so slow and the amount of actual use is so low that any problems of that sort wouldn't really show up. What the situation was in genuine mixed gauge days I have no idea at all but its an interesting thought. All the best, Castle

Hi All, This is not the end, nor is it the beginning of the end but it is perhaps the end of the beginning - of my boat train. Right then, as the song from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang goes "Up from the ashes, grow the roses of success". I don't think that two more diverse quotes could or indeed should be so crudely nailed together like this - Churchill and Disney! Long story short, an incident involving me, a badly shut pot of black paint and some of the most rural Anglo Saxon heard in the Castle household resulted in the coach sides and end assembly having an overnight bath in a small tank of Dettol. The resultant affects were: 1 A very annoyed Castle. 2 A very (some might say too) clean sort of a smell in the home of Castle - despite the double bagging of the tank in an attempt to seal it. 3 Some bare brass that needed a new paint job. 4 A lesson learned about keeping paint pots away from freshly finished paint jobs. 5 A very annoyed Castle I know points 1 and 5 are the same but I really do deserve the metaphorical kick up the backside for this schoolboy error! Thankfully, it only hit the model and didn't go all over the room too. Words like stable door and pre bolted horse might be used over point 4 but if it helps anyone else to not do this then so be it! If anything, paint job 2 was a bit better than paint job 1 so at the end of the day I think I have gained in all areas but the lost time and materials but we live and learn. These things are bound to happen from time to time and we have to overcome them to get on. Philosophical as always! Having got back to where I started from (!), I then had a look at the etched window bars. There are two types, the straight 5 bar types and what I call the grill type. Both of the etchings for these require trimming to fit and the 5 bar ones, if cut directly in half, were good for 2 of No. 111's windows. I love a bargain! The grill type also needed cutting in half but would only do one window each. The etchings on these are VERY thin and required careful handling. I must admit to loosing one in the process. Here is a before and after on the 5 bar without black top coat. Then there was much rejoicing (hooray!) as the final assembly could commence. Then I remembered what I had forgotten - the end grab rails! Not only hadn't I made them but I had also neglected to open out the holes in the etched ends AND drill the holes in the aluminium roof. Arghhhhhh! I could just smell another paintwork disaster... The modelling gods were obviously satisfied with the previous sacrifice of a fully finished paint job as a quick dab of roof grey that was sprayed into a can lid and then applied with a brush soon hid any evidence of my little miscalculation. I bent the handrails from Alan Gibson brass 0.45 mm handrail wire and used a combination of a drawing and a Bachmann Collet as inspiration. I have a small pot of chemical blackening solution so a ten minute soak in it made for no paint and no opening out of holes due to paint making things thicker. This is a kind of very advanced chickening out - I just didn't want to take any other tool than a pair of tweezers and a screwdriver to the coach any more! Luckily, this coach only has them on one end. The Bill Bedford style coupling was employed as I think it looks the business without having all the cornering issues of scale screw link couplings on coaches. The securing nuts for this and the bogies were sealed in place with my own special brew of a thick old pot of black games workshop acrylic as a kind of thread lock. It works quite well and it is totally removable so I can open the whole thing up in future if I want to install lights and the like in future. I haven't got around to putting the luggage in yet Kev, but I am going to an exhibition next month so I will have a look and see what they have on offer. The gangways are my own version of the Dart Castings set up, using end board etches, some scrap brass and my own paper bellows. After experimenting I found that the Dart ones at 4 sections long were a bit too long. For the minimum radius I have planned and forced the coaches to derail when I tried it, I reduced the thickness of the paper a bit and went for 3 which seems to work very well. Not prototypical probably but when little No. 4079 flashes past at a scale 90 mph who is going to know? I also blackened the end boards so there was no chance of the paint abrading off and causing problems as they seem to need to slide over each other quite a bit going through 'S' curve / cross over type points. Here it is being tested a bit earlier on with a little something else I have been tinkering with and I had to get it to this stage before any paint went anywhere near anything so I could make changes to the set up if needed. So there you have it, a finished Collett K. 41 Full Brake Coach representing No. 111 in its possible livery of Early BR crimson & cream. I don't care now if someone comes up with a picture of it in plain crimson and say "it wasn't in that livery you know" (imagine this said with stereotypical nerd type accent) I shall just put my fingers in my ears and go la la la la la etc until they go away... I have painted it twice now! I have suffered enough! And that's all for now... What's that you say? What is that next vehicle in the train Castle you say? That hasn't been on here before has it you say? Well, no, it hasn't I suppose... Well, alright, as it's you! Gee - it's a SIPHON, er, G. Much, indeed whole books have been written, about the famous GWR SIPHON breed of what would now be termed CCTs but are known to us GWR geeks as Brown Vehicles. This particular example is an inside frame SIPHON G No. 2796 of 1937 vintage, built as part of lot 1578 to diagram O.33. It sped up and down carrying milk churns and parcels, much like its fellow SIPHONS until the dark clouds of WW II closed in. It became part of an ambulance train and was use as part of Cass. Evac. (Casualty Evacuation) operations. To do this it gained roof ventilators and internal racking to hold the stretchers. It is quit a spooky vehicle in this respect as doubtless some of the poor souls that boarded her might well have been on their last journey and some may not have made it out the doors again. The truth is that we just don't know but it is a sobering thought and again another reminder of the railways role in winning WW II and the sacrifices made for victory. Funny how this subject has stuck with Little Didcot for a page or so isn't it? Today it's role is somewhat more peaceful as a store for the carriage and wagon department's soft furnishing and textile supplies. It has little purpose as an active vehicle on site but it is currently being externally restored so that it can be seen, enjoyed and appreciated by members and the public alike while continuing as a vital piece of equipment for the C&W projects. The model is basic as you can get - an old Lima version was bought on line and taken into Little Didcot's own C&W works. The under frame was stripped right down and detailed from various sources including Dart Castings, Frogmore and so on. The bogies were given new wheels to replace the cookie cutters fitted in Italy and they had the missing steps fitted too. It originally got screw link couplings and white metal hoses too but these have been removed in favour of the Bedford unit described above. The new numbers were courtesy of Modelmaster. Well, from famine to feast on this thread, you wait ages for Castle to get on and finish a project and post something about it and two turn up at once! Now I guess we need to look at a super saloon or three. As a teaser, look at the roof on this: All the best, Castle

Hi All, Didcot - where the Great Western still reigns supreme Or Didcot - Little Swindon Predictable again... All the best, Castle

Hi George, While I know next to zero (well, zero really!) about LMS wagons, with the assistance of my fellow RMWEB members, I managed to model the two LMS vent wagons at Didcot. I used Ratio uppers and a Parkside chassis on one of them which was a straight swap and required no further work than building the kit as prescribed by Ratio themselves. My build is here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/51212-little-didcot/page-8 I hope this is useful and thread hijack over - sorry Ric! All the best, Castle

Hi All, M.I.B.: Anthony Manor was (I am fairly sure) was in plain black with BR and I can imagine that she was black during the war too. Having been built in 1938, you can assume that she could have gone as far as 4 to 5 years before overhaul which would put her first heavy general in 1942 or 1943. Tender engines will look good in wartime livery because of the plated over cab windows so these two would be a great choice. The only issue being that if they are BR black you will have to remove the number and shedcode plates from the smokebox door. Rich: looking at your blog, you have a 2884 on your layout. If you renumbered her to No. 3822, which was built in 1940 then you can go for black no problem at all! All the best, Castle

Hi All, Thanks to everyone who has contributed to the paint discussion - particularly Rob and his chemistry experience. I knew somebody here would know. It seems that the chromium compounds would be the trick. As Mike says though, they were still lining the 4 cylinder beasts in 1942. They must have had a secret stash of paint... It shouldn't be too difficult to produce models in the WW II livery - plating over the side cab windows is simple enough and black paint if needed is easy to do too. A trip to the Fox website for the GWR transfers would seal the deal. Chris is right though - there aren't many models done like this. One exception is MickLNER on this forum who has done some absolutely cracking models of the Gresley Pacifics in wartime condition on his thread which is well worth reading. I would have thought that you would have been looking at the end of WW I rather than WW II Mikkel! Still, I would encourage any wartime railway modelling. One book I have on WW II railwaymen is Steaming Through The War Years by Reg Robertson, published by Oakwood Press. It is based on his experiences on the ex Great Eastern lines rather than the GWR but it is a cracking read none the less. The ISBN number is 0 85361 4725. All the best, Castle

Hi RJS, I can only guess that it was something to do with the chemicals that went into the green paint being sourced outside the UK and / or being in short supply and / or being required elsewhere for essential war work. They did need to paint a lot of essential war winning stuff green during the war - Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancasters, Churchill Tanks, etc... I am not a chemist so I don't know what goes into green paint, only that it stops the rust and you have to get the right shade otherwise you have lots of enthusiasts telling you about it! The irony being that apart from two exceptions, all of the Kings and Castle remained green (albeit unlined) throughout the war. How Swindon got away with that one I don't know but someone out there will know more about this than I do.* Lets throw this one open to the floor. Anyone please? All the best, Castle *If there are any Castle Class questions, I'm your chap!** **Except the one above about the green of course...

Hi Rob, Lovely pictures there - very nice indeed! Nos. 3738 and 3822 (with the black paint and plated over cab windows) are in wartime black to help tell the stories. The sacrifice, supreme effort and harsh conditions endured by railway personnel during both world wars is largely forgotten with focus of course being mainly being on the battles and not the home front. By having these engines in these schemes, we get to help tell these stories and pass the history along. When we were playing yesterday, a chap and his family asked to come up on to the platform to have a look at the engine and take a few pictures. Whilst they were there, one of is two sons asked me (very intelligently I might add, given his age) as to why the engine was black but didn't have the BR logo on it. This promoted a little discussion amongst us, the gentleman and his family about the railways in WW II. The lad went away with a great deal more knowledge than he started with by asking a simple question and the railwaymen were remembered to another group of people. Mission accomplished! Besides, the collection already has a green one: http://www.didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/locos/3650/3650.html We don't want any duplication now do we? All the best, Castle

Hi All, Just a quick Big Didcot update from Little Didcot... Although she was relaunched into traffic over the recent bank holiday weekend, today was a thank you for all of us that had dropped our current projects to jump in and take part in Mission Pannier! No. 3738 was steamed for us all to indulge in what is colloquially known on shed as 'workers playtime'! This is where we all had a go at driving her up and down the main demonstration line under the supervision of one of the crews. Here are two pictures of the entertainments for your delectation and edification: No. 3738 is now set for the remaining 4 years of her current boiler certificate. We started dismantling her in mid to late November to get the boiler out, it was tested out of frames last month, the annual insurance exam was about two weeks ago and she was back in service by Easter. Not too bad at all if we do say so ourselves... All the best, Castle P.S. No prizes for spotting the only bit that we forgot to put the black top coat on...