Was just wondering if a steam cleaner would remove the wax or end up warping the item being cleaned? Anyone know what hot steam would do to this material?
I usually start cleaning RP Acrylic by putting the item in warm (noy hot) water for 30 sec.-1 Minute. Then I use a cheap battery operated children's toothbrush. The type that just vibrates. The brush is soft and the vibration is gentle enough that it doesn't damage anything. I repeat the above steps a couple of times. Then I rinse the item in warm water. After the rinse, I give the item a couple of quick dunks in 70% isopropyl alcohol, shake off the excess, and let air dry. For spaces that are too tight for the tooth brush, I use a moistened tooth pick to remove the heavier wax, then use a fine pin to clean out the details. Dan S.
And it's a lot quicker than my old dental pick method. The warm water and wet brush wash away most of the hard to reach wax and do a god job of cleaning the detailed sufraces. Then, i just need to hand pick the stubborn areas. Dan S.
Hi Karin, Thanks for your comments. I think it is just a matter of trying out. But for this, necessary to have the stuff. Acrylic should not stand more than 70° C, and hot wax should be in ultrasonic more difficult to take away as cold wax, the microdrops act better on hard particles. The right temperature, the right bath product, the right power and the right time, all is just possible by tryout. I think that the toothbrush will work good on engine shells. But I doubt, with the small logging kit parts, that you easy reach all the corners without risk of damage. This could be more pain and time as pleasure and excuse, but I would in this case always prefer a brass kit.
Armand, I did use the toothbrush method on the logging kit. And, the soft brush and warm water method worked well. It doesn't require vigorous scrubbing. It just takes light brushing and rinsing. Once the "wax" is loosened by the water, it brushes off fairly easily. After only a few minutes, all of the rivets, gear teeth and saw teeth were free of the "wax". The key is that the tooth brush is SOFT. They are sold over here for use on gums or for children. A firm brush would tear the logging model up. Dan S.
Myself, as I'm waiting an U18B shell when it's released, I will keep my spare GP35 chassis' Blomberg trucks as some of the prototype U18 ran on these.. Dom
the best way to remove the wax from rp models is heptane aka bestine rubber cement thinner http://papercement.com/bestine.html heptane is a solvent that dissolves any waxy substance but does not harm acrylic plastics. dip the model in the solvent and gently scrub the wax away with a brush. been using it on rp stuff since rp stuff started coming out and its never harmed any model. also the best way to remove price tags and labels bar none. jim k
Engine Shell "How To" "How to" PDF and user's comments and painted photo's of Thom Welsh's RF-16 A&B have been added to the SEARAILS Engine Shell page.
good information. thanks for it. i was late in returning from a trip, so i'm "behind" on my painting efforts. i think you'll like what i do with the RS shell in an older striped Rio Grande scheme. i'm close now, but need to get some PollyS engine black in order to finish.
Hey ! Check out the recent Model Railroader with a "new products" section featuring the Searails RP shell !!! That has to be a first in Z ! Wholly Cow. Something other than AZL or MTL listings. I would have painted one next to it, to really bring out the "what it could be" factor. .
Hi David, I am still waiting for my shells to arrive. Did you have to do any surface sanding before painting? Thanks, John
hi john, i made a half-hearted attempt at smoothing the cab roof and a few other spots on top, but apart from smoothing the cab roof, it's not worth it. the sides, themselves, are pretty smooth. i believe they said that the RP process was done vertically, instead of horizontally (if i understood that right), which i take to mean that instead of lines across the doors and sides, the lines appear across the top and bottom. i used a brush and painted several coats of Polly S (acrylic) paint on the roof to try to fill in the grooves. i think it helped. the harder part of the process it getting the remnants of the wax off. i'm now ready to spray paint, now that i have my details done. i know some people will hate this, but i removed the plows on both ends (as the Rio Grande version i'm modeling didn't have them. i also added twin lights in the light housing. the pleasant surprise was that the holes for the lights are "drilled" through! nice feature. i'm installing one of the new digitrax decoder boards (with surface mount LEDs). a little routing of a few areas in the roof and the shell sits on the frame with enough room for the board too. hope this helps. dave f.
Disclaimer First: The needle in my airbrush was damaged and I didn't know it. So, I had to strip the first paint job. I don't recommend this. Anyway, I wound up using the dry brush method, which I am not very good at. For those interested, the Antenna mounts are made by Gold Medal Models. They are supposed to be N scale, but, I don't think they look too bad. I still have to decal and clear coat the shell. Then I need to permanently affix and paint the truck sideframes. They are only temped in for the pictures. Dan S.
It's a good lookin' unit and all, but it's starting to look to me, like something Baldwin Locomotive Works built?
It's looking good Dan. I plan to do a light gray primer coat first and I think I will try to do several thin coats to even out the surface as much as possible. I should probably replace my airbrush as it isn't that reliable anymore and those little surprises are troublesome. John
My two ALCO RS shells arrived in the post today. They look very nice. Hopefully I can start working on them this weekend. John
ENGINE SHELL SIDEFRAMES "...Then I need to permanently affix and paint the truck sideframes. They are only temped in for the pictures. ....'" Dan S.[/quote] Regarding sideframes. We can produce sideframes in RP 3D, all we need is; A. Reference to, or supply of, CORRECTLY dimensioned drawings of the specific type B. Minimum order of 25 units per type Would a "sprue" of four sideframes together as one unit be acceptable? Should the inboard side be "flat", and not 3D? Our first thoughts were that, there are so many different variants of sideframes, it would not be feasible so we left it to the modeler. (Also, they would probably add between $5 - $10 each unit of four frames.) How do we create a POLL on this site to determine which sideframes to manufacture? If we can't poll on this site, would a poll on our commercial site be an acceptable alternate? Jim