hon30critter...Do you realize Wayne that you have applied well over 5000 individual letters and punctuation marks to your fleet?...
Never thought about it that way, Dave...now I'm tired.
It does help to explain why I can't get to those other projects I want to do, though.
Wayne
doctorwayneTasks like these make us stronger...or is it crazier?
Actually they make you into the 'Hulk'. That's from the muscle tension that develops between your shoulder blades round about the 100th letter.
Do you realize Wayne that you have applied well over 5000 individual letters and punctuation marks to your fleet? I already had a cramp in my back before I read this post. Now it's worse!
Cheers!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Thanks, Guy, I appreciate your kind comment.
Nevin,
I have several pieces of Beaver creek brass - awesome stuff - very detailed and the locos run great. One of the sets of BC passenger cars I have, the trucks roll like they have sqaure wheels, the other set of cars have good rolling trucks - go figure!!!
Wayne,
You get the award for patience and skills - the cars look great.
Guy
see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site
Nevin....a Beaver Creek open platform combination car that I am going to turn into Tonopah and Tidewater #12. One decal letter at at time!
One car shouldn't be too bad....I decaled roughly 40 diesels with ELORA GORGE & EASTERN spelled out in individual letters...
...and approximately 80 passenger cars with the same roadname, but done with individual dry transfer letters...
This little car, done more recently, required 168 individual pieces of decal, some pieces consisting only of the period following a short-form...
Tasks like these make us stronger...or is it crazier?
Thanks to everyone who posted. This has been very helpful. The model in question is a Beaver Creek open platform combination car that I am going to turn into Tonopah and Tidewater #12. One decal letter at at time!
if using a airbrush or rattle can and you don't want to remove wheels i use a dab of heavy grease placed in the side frame and axle ends , same thing can be done on wheel treads after painting it can be wiped off. if air temp is less that here (AZ) petroleum jellyworks well also and is a bit easier to remove.
Another thing to look at is how well do these trucks roll? Brass passenger cars are notorious for having trucks that don't roll well. Sluggish trucks combined with the weight of the cars can make them poor operating models without some modifications.
I have replaced trucks on brass passenger cars in several instances to improve performance. In that case painting the original trucks may not matter....
I haven't tried it on brass, but you might try Neo-Lube from Micro-Mark. I apply it with a small brush on my nickel-silver rail and it dries to a nice flat dark gray - kind of like engine black paint.
Another option is to use Scalecoat paint. I used Scalecoat I, formulated for use on metals without need for primer, to brush-paint the plastic targets on these Central Valley switchstands. While they took several days to fully dry, the finish is very tough and should stand up well to the constant handing those targets will get whenever i need to re-set their position, especially when taking photos...
This cab, from a brass locomotive, was airbrushed using Scalecoat I thinned with lacquer thinner. The paint went on in nice thin coats, giving good coverage over the bare brass, and in the short time it took to clean the airbrush, the paint was dry enough to allow careful handling of the cab...
I did allow it to fully cure for a few days, and the finish is very durable, without the need for baking.
For painting metal trucks, I'll brush paint or airbrush depending on the design and construction of the particular ones needing paint. Some are best-suited to brush work, some to airbrush, and some to brush work first in areas that might be hard to airbrush without putting too much paint on adjacent details. Once the difficult areas have been done with the brush, the rest can then be finished using the airbrush.I always brush-paint the wheels on locomotives, and on freight and passenger, cars paint the front and back faces of the wheels and the axles, too.If, whether airbrushing or brush-painting, you get paint on the wheel treads, allow it to dry (you don't want to be handling wheels or complete trucks when they're still wet, anyways), then dip a small brush in lacquer thinner, touching it to the offending paint, then wipe the area before it dries, using a tissue, paper towel, or rag. This will work on pretty-well all types of paint
The nicest way to deal with these kinds of trucks is to remove the wheels and paint them separately. There are frequently four screws that hold the sideframes onto the bolster. Remove them. Obviously.
The springs are frequently decorative. As opposed to working. If they're decorative, just treat them as part of the sideframe. If they're working, that's a bit tricky. At that point, one needs to reconsider disassembly. As in, not doing it.
If the wheels can be gotten out, I paint the wheelsets with "dirty wheel color", and then remove the paint from the treads and bearings with solvent and pipe cleaners. The sideframes and bolster are painted with the appropriate color.
If getting the wheels out isn't workable, I would spray the whole thing truck-color, and then brush paint the wheels and axles "dirty wheel color". And I'd clean the treads with solvent and pipe cleaners, as appropriate.
Ed
I have never painted brass passenger car trucks before, but I have painted several brass locos with trailing trucks on them. I also prefer not to take them apart for the same reasons you invoke.
On these, I usually use a paint brush, with thinned primer paint, and finish it off with a very light coat of finishing paint using my airbrush. A good quality brush works too on the final coat. I don't bake these and found that to be an uncessary step. Others may disagree... The best primer I've seen was made by Floquil, but that's long gone off the LHS shelves unfortunately. Watery thin shellac worked for me (applied with a brush), with a light coat of auto primer over that. The auto primer is really there just to make sure I cover all the brass.
Simon
Rather than taking the trucks completely apart, can you just remove the wheel sets? That's how I paint trucks. After getting the wheel sets out, I mask the the axle holes to keep paint out of them.
If the wheel sets won't come out, short of taking the trucks apart, I would worry about a spray paint job getting into the moving parts, springs, wheel bearings and gumming them up. I wouldn't worry about painting the wheel treads, a few minutes with a wire wheel in your Dremel will get the treads bright and shiny again. Paint clogged wheel bearings will to harder to clean.
Surface preparation is everything when it comes to getting the paint to stick. You need to go over them with solvent (alcohol is good) and a tooth brush to get every trace of lube, oil, or grease off. Follow with a scrub in hot soapy water, and a GOOD dry (at least overnight) Don't touch the trucks with bare hands after the wash and rinse.
My favorite paint for trucks is Krylon or Rustoleum dark gray auto primer in a rattle can. It is the right color, it is the best stick to metal chemistry money can buy, and it dries dead flat. I brush paint the wheel faces with grimy black for friction bearing trucks, and light tan or rust for roller bearing trucks.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
I have a couple of brass passenger cars that I want to paint. The trucks on these cars are brass and are very nice an intricate. I can think of two ways to approach painting them. The first is to disassemble them and paint the parts individually and then reassemble them. I can see a number of potential problems including not being able to get them back together, especially the springs. The second is to cut tape to cover the tread of the wheels and them paint them intact. that seems like the better route to me but obviously there could be no baking. What do others to with these? If I don't take them apart, what is the best way to clean them before painting? Your suggestions are apprecated.