Painting Live Steam Locos....whats bestest?

alan2525 · Painting Live Steam Locos....whats bestest?

What's the best way of painting a live steam loco to get a good, durable, tough and paint finish? Needs to be oil resistant, easy to clean, resistant to some heat too. Although only for the cab and tanks - boiler will be Heat Resistant Paint.

Acrylic Car spray paint, airbrush, enamel, celulose etc?

What primers and rubbing compounds to use to get the paint finish, how long between coats?

I'm after a nice finish as opposed to a quick couple of coats with a halfords rattlecan.

I know there are whole books written on this subject, there are also specialist firms that'll do the paint for you for a price!

syrtismajor

Ah, the dilemma I faced when trying to repaint my Mamod SL2...

Totally from my experience, make sure that all metal is clean, rust / oxide free and then sand with Wet & Dry (I use P600) until the metal has a satin sheen. I then clean with meths (or pure acetone if you can get it, I wouldn't use nail varnish remover) to remove all traces of grease etc.
I primed my loco with Plastikote Metal Primer, two coats sprayed on with about 30 mins between the two.
The main coat was Duplicolor (Bought from Motaman) car body spray. This was three coats with 30min between each and then left 24 hours to cure.
Since car bodies can get pretty hot / greasy / cold and cleaned alot, I though it would do the job. So far it hasn't let me down and I have steamed Sir Rillian through three boxes of fuel pellets since the repaint!
Behold!:

I'm sure there is better advice / paints out there but I will dispense these small pearls of wisdom:

1/ Ensure the Metal is clean and rust free

2/ Ensure the Metal is clean

3/ sand with very fine sandpaper

4/ Clean the metal again for good measure

5/ Use a familiar brand of heavy duty Metal Primer (Etch Primer if you can find / afford it)

6/ Did I mention to clean the metal?

7/ If you leave 24 hours between each coat you can sand again with even finer sandpaper, this will give you a mirror flat finish to the paint when you apply the final coat

8/ Spray outside on a calm, warm day. As soon as you stop spraying, take the bits inside and leave them in a STILL room with little dust to dry.

9/ And before you start, clean the metal

10/ Normal car paint spray cans from Halfords etc will do the job perfectly, and availible in a handy range of colours!

Hope this helps, and good luck!

DLR

as said a bove make sure its clean and try to touch it with clean hands. But if you are painting red make sure you get good coats or it shows very badly and turns pink (past experience)

igy569

Sounds like a pair of cotton gloves would be what you need while doing this.

Tux rental places usually have them cheap.
I used to collect stamps, and I would only handle them with white cotton gloves. I still keep a few pairs on hand for the times I need to not touch something, and can not use rubber or latex gloves. I once ruined 3 days worth of paintwork on a model of the Queen Mary I built while using latex gloves. I held it in one place too long, and the latex lifted the paint on that spot.... it was horrible. It is really hard to strip, and refinish styrene plastic.

So I stick with the cotton gloves now, not to mention you can wash and reuse them!!!

Good luck!! I have used adheasion promoter on man things, but nothing that gets hot, so I have no idea if there is a version that can withstand heat. I use it every year now to repaint the bumpers on the Volvo...

Florian

Hi together

If you are painting brass, there's a trick:

First prime the brass with zinc paint. Then bake it at 80 to 100°C.
This should adhere quite good on the brass. Now you can use the "normal" Color.
I know some guys who use two component car paint to paint their locos. And it seems to work very well.

Also the zinc paint seems to adhere really good on brass (unlike a lot of other paint

)

Florian

alan2525

Thanks for the advice!