Painting and lining

Nice effect as a result of painting the locomotive on its side.

From here I completely finished the locomotive in black. It was stunningly beautiful in its black guise.

The inside of the chimney had however not received enough paint. Not wanting to risk the new coat, I took a dropper and attempted to let a drop of paint flow into the chimney. It fell off the dropper's tip prematurely and splattered all over the locomotive completely destroying all the hard work. After some politically less correct expressions I gave it a wash with thinner and started all over again! Even the rivet detail below the footplate needed to be done again.

Again: modelling is all about stamina and perseverance. (Sigh!)

This photo should convince you of the silky smoothness of the black paint. Look at the exquisite row of rivets below the footplate on the side!

I used Philotrain paint, available via Phildie. This paint outclasses by far anything I have used so far. It is cellulose paint based on thinner so make sure you have a good spray booth to expel all the dangerous fumes. Not good for the environment but oh boy what a result.

The paint seems hard on your budget, €11 on a small 125 ml tin is something to consider, but let's do some math. It means the price is €88 per litre. Now take Revell with its famous 13 ml tins. Selling for just €1.95 they may seem cheap, but doing the same math reveals Revell coming at a stunning €150 per litre! And then consider the superiority of the Philotrain range.

There's more to advocate Philotrain's paint range. The paint can be seriously diluted. I used a paint : thinner mixture of appr. 1 : 2. The paint is also indefinitely preservable. If it dries out simply add thinner and it will dissolve again. Just mix and stir very well.

Unfortunately the happiness over the black coat was short-lived. When I started masking I soon found the same discovery as with the NS6200: If you spray black first you have a lot of difficult masking to do. It is far easier to spray green first and then mask for black. After two attempts I gave up masking black. I gave it a wash with thinner and gave the loco a new base coat and a green coat.

The first paint job is the red of the buffer beams

Once dry a little further masking must be done...

...but then at last the black goes on. Now (s)pray all is well.

Yes!! It's OK. Some minor issues, but nothing that can't be solved

I photographed the model with four head-on views, imported the photos in imaging software and drew the lines needed over the photo. I isolated the lines and printed them on paper to test if the sizes and line thickness were good.

You may note that all windows are oversized horizontally. Based on earlier experience I knew that applying a square decal in one piece would be difficult. So I decided to cut it vertically and apply it in two separate pieces. To create some overlap I oversized the horizontals.

Once satisfied I multiplied the design as much as would fit in one decal sheet (10 x 15 cm, say 4 x 6 in). Experience has taught me to have a surplus of prints as inevitably I will waste a few.

Next was printing the design. I made a few trial prints first on glossy photo paper to see if the printer would behave. Again when satisfied I inserted a blank decal sheet into the printer and went for it.

I sealed the printed decalwith a good spray of clear coat.

I work systematically. If I do not I'll mix up things, make mistakes and get irritated. So for my own peace of mind and consequently for a better result I keep things well organised. If things get out of place too much I take the time to reorganise. Below is a photo with my standard arrangement. Remember I am right handed. Left handed persons may prefer to mirror things.

1. Central in the arrangement is the loco of course. I use foam as underlayment to prevent wear and scratching the vulnerable paint. The loco is supported by a big brush to prevent the model from tipping.
2. The decals are of course the main subject of all the work. I keep them right in front of me.
3. I keep a small work area directly in front of me where I take the necessary measurements and cut the decals to size.
4. Most of the tooling is kept at my right hand. Most tools are simple, from left to right
   • a steel ruler for cutting the decals;
   • a stainless steel spatula, a left over from my study as a chemist, comes in very handy to pick up and transport the decals from their bath to the model;
   • one small brush for work in the bath and manipulating the decals on the model;
   • a hobby scalpel with a fresh no 11 blade;
   • a caliper;
   • some tooth picks come in handy to move the freshly applied decal to their final place;
   • a pair of tweezers.
5. Pre-cut decals are stored on my left hand, waiting to be processed.
6. A small plastic water container with a very tiny amount of soap to break the water tension. With tiny I mean really, really tiny. A drop would be too much. I dip a tooth pick in soap, wipe it and then stir the water with it. What little soap remained in the grooves of the tooth pick will dissolve in the water and will do the trick.
7. After taking out the decal from its bath and apply it to the model I take out the left-overs with the tweezers and deposit them on a sheet of kitchen tissue. This prevents the litter from moving everywhere.
8. An extra sheet of kitchen tissue is used to dry off excess water or setting solution from the brushes. If the brushes or the surface of the model are too wet the decal will stay afloat. This can be resolved by touching the water with an almost dry brush. The water sucks into the brush by capillary action. Dry the brush again on the sheet of kitchen tissue and repeat if necessary. The tissue wil never get wet. You dip no more then tiny drops of water which evaporate faster than you can work.
9. Micro Sol is used to soften the decals to let them settle down. Note that I use a brush which I marked red on the top. It signals its exclusive use for Micro Sol. Not that Micro Sol is special but marking brushes for the special purpose prevent errors by mixing up brushes. The mark, a tie-wrap, also prevents the brush from rolling away.
10. Micro Set is applied to fix the decal once you are happy. Again the brush is marked blue for exclusive use with Micro Set.

I will be using ModelMaster's gloss coat. I don't remember ever having used it before and the hard lessons of airbrushing have taught me never to try something new on your precious recently finished paint and lining work. It is inviting disaster.

So I used the metal bottom of a US boxcar to try it out and truly I needed two attempts. I first coated with the coat diluted with white spirit. It was not really bad but I also missed the crispness I had expected and hoped for. I cleaned the boxcar's bottom in thinner and started over again. That is why I chose this bottom in the first place. It had sufficient detail to put the paints and coats to the test and it is made of metal and consequently insensitive to thinner. For the secons attempt I diluted the coat 1:1 with thinner. And it worked I got an nice even spray over the model and it settled well, giving nice crisp detail!

Next I took the jump and point the airbrush on the model. Alea Iacta Est [1]. It needs quiet but resolute yet accurate work to spray the gloss coat. Here all experience gained with and pains suffered from airbrushing kick in. Minutes later I had a stunning result.