Painting Molded Plastic Handrails

[falcon]

What paint is being used to paint plastic handrails? It is very annoying to custom paint my Reading units only to see that after some use and minor handling for maintenance, the paint on the handrails flake off. (No issues with Athearn metal handrails.) An article in MR a few months back addressed this topic with a specific paint but after trying out this paint, it too began to flake off. I do not think that enough testing was conducted to reach the conclusions of the article. Does the paint finish applied by the manufacturers eventually flake off or does this only happen with UNDEC models?

Any ideas or recommendations.

Thanks.

[Anonymous]

On the only loco I have with plastic handrails (A Bachmann Dash 8 in CSX paint), I used the Citadel Minatures range of acrylics - these are intended for wargaming minatures, but some of the colours are close enough to railroad paints. They go on easily, dry quickly, and don't need thinners to clean the brushes afterwards - just run them under the tap. I'm not sure if they're available in the US - do you have Games Workshop stores over there? If not, try the Games Workshop website at www.games-workshop.com.

[Anonymous]

Some handrails are molded from a flexible plastic, called Delrin I believe. Since most paints dry 'hard', i.e. not flexible, this leads to cracking and chipping when the plastic flexes. I have read somewhere that using paint intended for R/C car bodies will solve this problem.

[Anonymous]

I think we probably read the same letter in MR - someone was saying that they had taken to using R/C car paints on their loco handrails for the reasons you mention. Mind you, I've not had any cracking/chipping problems with the Citadel Acrylics - maybe they're slightly flexible when dry.

[falcon]

Thanks for the info. I have tried the R/C car body paint (Testors) recommended in the MR article but the paint flakes off just like the Floquil, once it dries out. I will try using the Citadel Acrylics when a find it locally and see what happens. If anyone comes up with a better solution to this quality problem please let me know through the forum. Thanks again

[Anonymous]

Try looking at this link to the article on painting chip proof handrails on MR:

http://www.trains.com/Content/Dynamic/Articles/000/000/002/593nbauj.asp

Seems Mr. Strang is pretty confident in the results. I myself have never tried this before.

[falcon]

I feel that Mr. Strang did not perform extended testing on his recommended method and/or materials. I did see his article and hoped this was the answer to my problem. I attempted painting handrails for a Stewart C-630 using the recommended paint (Testors)as specified in the article. The day after painting the handrails, you can handle or twist the handrails with out flaking as seen in the article. However I feel that this paint loses plyability because after it drys out or ages it seems to become hard and the paint flakes off the handrail just as bad as before.

[Anonymous]

This is expensive and only works with "oil" based paints, but auto paint stores have a plasticizer (sp?) agent they add to paint so it can be sprayed on urathane bumpers and nose pieces so it will not crack and such from minor impacts. As a past auto painter is does work on urathane bumpers. All my locos are stock paint so I have no first hand experience. FRED