A week or so ago I was looking for someone to paint a custom locomotive for what will be layout #2, BUT the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to give it a shot myself. Tonight I grabbed one of my N scale KCS GP40s and gave it a go. Took me a little bit of time trying to get the windows and number boards out, as I had never really gone inside my locos before out of fear of breaking something. We'll you know what? I'll be damned if with a little patience I figured it all out and painted away.. .it's looking pretty good too! I'm telling you this because without reading this forum time after time, I may have never had the nerve to just try it. I've scratch built structures because of you, learn to wire because of you, and now I'm painting my own fleet because of you....most of all I'm having fun. I don't post much but I do read often so I wanted to pass along a sincere thank you to everyone.
Pictures, please!
Jerry:
Congratulations on taking the plunge!
Like Ulrich said, show us some pictures.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Its my TEST engine so dont judge me too bad :) I need a finer brush, and messed up the grab irons a bit, but all and all I'm pretty proud of myself. I need some white decals for the raod name, but I'm just happy that I managed to get it back together!! Oh and its a GP38-2...dont know why I was thinking GP40
Its my TEST engine so dont judge me too bad :) I need a finer brush, and messed up the grab irons a bit, but all and all I'm pretty proud of myself. I need some white decals for the raod name, but I'm just happy that I managed to get it back together!!
Oh and its a GP38-2...dont know why I was thinking GP40
Thanks, Jerry - that´s a good looking paint job!
The paint job looks pretty good. I can't see any brush strokes.
As for the grab irons, it looks to me that the paint was too thick. Having said that, yellow is one of the hardest paints to get good coverage without it globbing up and destroying the details (been there, done that).
Some paints are worse than others. I have had a real hard time brush painting Tamiya flat colours, in fact I ditched the two or three bottles that I had after messing up one project. I have found that Humbrol and True Line paints go on very smoothly with a brush. The True Line paints are glossy so they have to be sprayed with Dullcote if you want a flat finish. Humbrol works fine whether you are using their matt or gloss finishes.
I don't use Testors paints much, other than Dullcote and Glosscote. The stuff in the bottles seems to take forever to dry hard. Their spray cans put down way too much paint in one pass. You can get away with that with the Dullcote and Glosscote but you have to move pretty quick with the spray can.
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
Dave, thank you for the tips!! I used testors on those grabs (you could tell) but I will try those others that you pointed out! I've noticed the globbing and wasnt sure what brands would work better so that will hellp a lot.
Nice work on the painting! Scenery for me is easier than electrical. I too go on the forums and try to replicate what others do based on their experience. Finding people who provide detailed descriptions with do's/taboo's helps.
One method I use, mentioned previously on this forum, is to first spray paint a flat white on- allow it to dry thoroughly, then hand or spray paint yellow on top. The flat white acts as a primer, allowing the yellow to cover better by adhering to a "textured" surface, without causing pooling or uneven areas.
Cedarwoodron