Well it is not often that JTW paints anything other than N, but a gentleman a few months back asked to have his MTH caboose re-painted into a Northern Pacific to match his NP train. Being that I have done O guage customs before I thought sure. So if you are interested in learning to re-paint an O or O27 project, follow along. So here is what we have: This is part of MTH's Rugged Line and is die-cast, very heavy. First thing to do was to dis-assemble and get the metal pieces ready for the stripper. No not Bambi, break fluid.
Break fluid is strong stuff, but it still took about a month to get the paint off and get back to the bare metal. With the metal out of the strip tank, I washed all the parts in a solution of warm water and liquid dish soap. Rinse with cold water and allow to air dry. Don't worry this is made from white metal and will not rust or oxidize like steal. With the parts dry, I sprayed everything with Floquil Light Aero Gray primer in a 3 oz. spray can. This primer has worked very well for me on other die-cast jobs and doesn't seem to chip. You can also use automotive primer, but do be carefull not to spray to much as the automotive grade primer will fill in details rather easily.
Acrylic primers will chip on metals so since the Floquil is a solvent I let it cure a good 24 hours before I went on. If you rush this and spray over an uncured primer, you may get bubbles in your paint finish, the evaporating gases will be trapped by the new layer of paint and form bubbles or a rough surface. "Nonesense!" you decry! Trust me, you can do it and escape the bubble thing, but it will catch up to you someday and it usally does when you are working on that prize winning model! I don't know how many modelers have called me in this situation. With the primer fully cured, we are ready for some NP color. Thanks to our very own Trainboard member Pray59, we have a good acurate color for this caboose. I used a 50% 50% mix of Santa Fe Mineral Brown and Caboose Red to come up with this NP Oxide Red color. I only had Polly Scale available so I substituted Mineral Red for the Santa Fe Mineral Brown, since both colors are almost identical. Now remember the first law of spraying acrylics! Wide needle #3 and LOW PSI. So with my airbrush ready, I sprayed my mixture of NP Red at 18 PSI and had no problems taking my time painting these parts.
Ouch. A month. Amazing how tough some paints are. And how others just almost fall off. That must be a fairly heavy car, if the body is die cast? Boxcab E50
Yes sir, good paint so a kudos to Mikes Train House on the durability of their products! It is all die-cast, only the smoke pie and markers are plastic! I bought one of these at close out lettered for the UP, me thinks it will be either a Rock Island or CB&Q soon:angel:
For this particular caboose, the frame and end rails are black. Out comes out the airbrush and a little bit of Engine Black and.... Wa la! Next I'll add a gloss clear coat and start my favorite part of the process, decals!
OK, the final thing to do to this caboose for today is the clear coat. Now wait a minute, you said earlier to wait at least 24 hours before putting additional layers on! Yes I did, for solvents. Oh is it because acrylics dry faster? No, because acrylics are pourus. Huh?! Because on a microscopic level, the gases of the alcahol can escape because acrylics do not form a "skin" like solvent based paints do. But that said, we need to do the clear coat now so that when we apply decals and decal solvent on the caboose our acrylic is fully cured. Long story short, acrylics over acrylics? Dry to the touch. Acrylics over a solvent? Make sure the solvent has cured at least 24 hours. Solvent over acrylics? Let the acrylics fully cure 24 hours before adding solvent. Dry simply means you can touch it without having finger prints on the model. Cure means on a chemical level the paint has fully set up and all the solvents have evaporated. Dry to the touch doesn't always mean cured. Ok with that out of the way, here is the caboose with its clear. The clear will help the decals smooth down on the caboose so when we give it the final shot of clear, we don't have those nasty ghost like lines around our image. Halloween is for us kids, not models! I tried to show you the difference in sheen on the caboose based on the angle I took the picture. I only clear coated the sides where decals will go to save time and layers. So will let this set up overnight and tomorrow the decals! I hope this encourages some of you to find bargains and re-paint them in your favorite road.
Very nice work, Now you have to admit, those bigger units are lots easier to paint. some rock island units will be pretty sweet.... i would like to see some FP45s that MTH did a while ago in some SP daylight some rock islands in the rockets scheme...
Yes. I'm a closet RI fan. Have a few books, some paper, etc. Really like their unique depots. :thumbs_up: Boxcab E50
Yeah, repainting a UP caboose into RI would be cool. Take that UP and smoke it. Nice job and I'm looking forward to seeing it decaled. Greg
Sorry no new posts today, my Mac went south. Hopefully it will be back soon, looks like a brown out may have done some damage. Fortunately the JTW PC was on another surge protector so as soon as I figure out how Mr. Gates lets me add images to his machine, we'll be back in business! One side is decaled and lookin' good. Pictures tomorrow!:thumbs_up:
Stripping with Brake Fluid Jim: On stripping, did you take precautions with the brake fluid? Like not getting it on your hands? Thanks.
Flash, I know my father in law and Brother in law have a garage and work on trucks for a living and are usally knee deep in the stuff. But because I suffer from OCD, I like to handle the peice carefully, cleaning it in the warm water and soap solution. I used a coat hanger to lift the caboose out and place it in the water. If you have sensitive skin, this would be the best method.
Well after two days of waiting we have decals! My process for decals is rather simple. I use a basin of warm water, a paper towel, a #0 brush, a sharp #11 blade, tweezers and Microsol. I first cut out the decal, place it in the basin of warm water for ten seconds, then let it rest on the paper towel for about thirty seconds. Once the decal moves freely on the decal paper, I pick up the decal with my tweezers and place the decal in the desired position. If the decal becomes hard to move, resist the temptation to move it with your finger as it will stick to your finger and not the caboose. Just apply a small drop of water with the #0 brush until the decal moves easily. Once I am happy with placement I add a few drops of Microsol decal solution to melt the decal onto the surface. This is esspecially important for this wood sided caboose. We want to give the impression that the decals were actually painted on, just as they were on the actual prototype. Here is a close up.
Now I'll let the decals dry overnight before I apply the final clear coat. That will be tomorrows post. Jim
