SPT Class 107 weathering

I bought one of the excellent Harburn Hobbies/Model Rail Bachmann Class 107's in the iconic Stathclyde orange and black livery last year and finally mustered the time and courage to weather it. After reading a recent article in Rail Express Modeller on weathering a Class 108 (the basis of the Cl 107 model) to give it the look of a machine cleaned but still that little bit grubby I knew I had to have a go and bring my model to life. I will be well suited to my layout set in the Greater Glasgow area of the seventies & eighties. 
The most tedious part of this project was the masking of the body sides and cabs, I left the gangwayed ends uncovered as these collect plenty of grime and retain it even after a visit to the wash plant.
I started with the roof using a mix of Railmatch roof dirt and a dab of Railmatch satin and Humbrol metalcote gun metal in my airbrush and worked length ways at first to get a base of dirt on the roof and tone down the factory finish. Then getting in closer I worked across the carriage roof lingering a little on the roof vents, at the gangway ends and at the cabs. A light misting was also sprayed over the gangway bellows and over the top of the carriage ends.
The underframe was next using a mix of Railmatch sleeper grime, metalcote gunmetal and Humbrol matt 62 leather. Just a broad application here before adding some more sleeper grime to the mix to darken it and then spraying around the engine block and bogie frames. The buffer beams and gangway ends were also sprayed.
When this had dried I removed the masking and using the excellent Tamiya weathering pigments the bogie's were given a light brush from below with the light sand shade to simulate brake dust before using the oil stain pigment from the top of the bogie to show up a greasier shade. I also used this shade and the dark rust colour on the engine block and lightly over the battery boxes etc. The final touch was a dab of tensocrom lifecolor acrylic oil pigment here and there to represent recent oil and grease stains that had taken on a light coat of track dirt. I like to use these on enamels just as they are drying and think that the effect is quite good. Adding more coats to build up the effect is an option.
The last major weathering task to do is on the body sides. I use the paint from the airbrush mix and worked it into the door recesses before wiping off with a cotton bud moistened in thinners; care should be taken not to rub too hard especially over the printed numbers and logo's. The cotton buds were also used to rub off some of the still not quite dry paint from the door foot boards.

Masking up. Note the gangway ends are left unmasked.




The cabs were masked and the joins sealed with maskol. This has been sprayed with a base layer of dirt.

 


The underframes have been weathered using the Tamiya range of weathering pigments.




The finished article, nearly. The bodysides have been given a light wash of grime but the door recesses have been picked out for a bit more dirt and the foot boards given a wipe to expose their original colour.

Class 107 107447 is tested on the club layout after weathering. 

 I've been pretty impressed with the finish achieved on this model with my airbrush. The next job is to fit a DCC chip, a driver and passengers.