A few years ago my wife agreed in letting me buy old junkers, get them in working condition and then resell. Well, now that they all work I don't want to part with them. It was so much fun getting them to work that I want to keep working on them. So, being that these units now run, (all post war engines, cars, and accessories) they are still pretty banged up. The next step I see is re-painting them.
I have been reading about air-brushing and techniques for air brushing but I'm confused about what equipment to buy. There is so much out there and all of it promises that it is the best for the beginner.What should I be looking for? I have a limited budget, which why I chose to purchase operating challanged units in the first place.
Suggestions on what to look for in equipment would be appreciatied.
Ted
Ted, Merry Chirstmas. Maybe before you jump in and spend money (boy, bet your wife would approve of this thinking!) you might want to try spray paint cans. An airbrush is more essential for smaller scale trains, or maybe the more finely detailed trains of today. But a lot of the older more traditional trains have exaggerated details, so spray paint works fine.
Some brands are better than others: I've used the Spray-N-Go and Krylon Short Cuts brands because they are plastic safe and dry FAST. Though if you use a plastic safe primer and cover the whole item to be painted, then you could even use Rustoleum.
Since you are buying junkers, you might want to seek out a couple of likely beaters that won't bother you if you screw them up... you learn as you go along. Yes, with an air brush and the Weaver paint, you might not have to prime, but I prime everything I do for paint adhesion and for making cars opaque. A light grey primer works well in most cases. Cars that will be yellow or orange get a coat of white primer before the final color process begins.
The biggest thing with repainting is the ability to make paint masks unless you are doing single color items. You can see I did a simple mask to get the inside of the dump car black. The next big obstacle these days is the rapidly declining availability of decals in 0 scale... it's fallen a lot in the past couple years with many items now no longer available in 0 from Microscale (who is probably still the biggest decal maker).
I did a thread recently on decals, which you can search for with the search option to the right of your screen. By the way, those are examples of my own handiwork above. And I mix and match O scale decal data sets with HO decals from larger items like oversize box cars and engines to get the largest lettering and heards. This technique works well for the smaller traditionally sized trains, as some full scale decal sets are actually too big for 6464-type sized box cars, or the K-Line S-2 switcher pictured above.
brianel, Agent 027
"Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need."
WOW! That really is nice work. I would have thought I would need airbrush for that. Thank you. It makes sense to do as you suggest. I have quite a few engine frames that are in very bad condition that would not be missed.
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