I am going to be freelancing an HO layout and i need some tips for painting my engines. I don’t have an airbrush and i dont think i’ll be getting one in the near future so i need some tips for brushpainting or using spray cans. Also can you get the Polly Train Paint colors in spray cans? I already have paint schemes designed.
Save your dollars up, then get the airbrush.
This is a big step, and without any experience you should plan on ruining several engines and/or paint jobs before you can get the hang of it.
Painting with spray cans can take a lot of practice, they are more difficult to use than air brushes - the paint comes out so fast that you can put too much on too fast and it will run. If you are painting more than one color, the masking between colors will have to be perfect, as the spay paint will run under the tape. If it doesn’t it will leave a ridge on the edge when removed.
Maybe a good idea to practice on a few junk box cars first.
Bob Boudreau
Hello UPJohn,
I’ve been in your situation before. You can use spray cans but you will get so much better results with even a cheap airbrush, IMHO. You’ll find that it’s also much easier.
Hope you don’t mind my saying but if price is an issue, you can always get the gray-colored economy airbrushes that are sold at Wal-Mart. If you don’t have a compressor you can buy “air in can” with an adapter for the airbrush hose.
The easiest part: You can spray Badger ModelFlex paint as is! No need to thin it.
JPM35 was in a similar situation not to long ago. He went ahead and obtained an airbrush. The results of his first paint job were impressive!
Just a thought!
Check out the Behold Hogwarts post. That was my first try with an airbrush. Came out MUCH better than my brushed on engines.
http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=34152
Don’t!
Kidding, of course…but…I have had bad beginner experiences with the airbrush so be sure to practice on a worthless engine first.
I painted beer cans.
If you are dead set against an air brush, be sure and stick with simple paint jobs in common readily available colors. You will be time and money ahead if you go with Testors, because even Wally World carries that. And, you can do a very , very nice job with them in spite of the handicaps. Just keep telling yourself, over and over - light coats.
If you do get an inexpensive airbrush, even using the canned air, you will soon be money ahead versus using spray cans. The cans waste a lot of paint because of the pattern and flow.
Unless of course, you are like some of us and decide you must stock at least a quart of every known brand of thinner, and two large bottles of every kind of paint made, and a large stock of empty bottles so you can custom mix colors, use some, and let the rest dry up, settle out, or otherwise go bad. And you may as well get at least a 3 horsepower compressor and tank because then you can fill tires and get air tools for the vehicles too (painting at 1 AM can get kinda dicey though). Oh well, if money ever gets real tight I could mix them all together and paint a decent sized house dark gray I suppose. I could even spray it… with the airbrush. 
nfmisso,
I just checked out www.hosam.com. Wow, what a great site. It went straight to my favorites page. I can not wait to start painting like UP john.
Jeff
Spraycans are ok, so long as you have a decent brand - I like the Tamiya sprays. One brand I have found useful: Citadel Minatures. Not sure if Games Workshop is available over there, they sell to the wargaming crowd with whitemetal figures, etc, but they also have great paints - their cans of black and white spraypaint make great undercoats and will save you money - an undercoat of white will allow you to use fewer coats of light colours, saving money and resulting in a better finish. Hope this helps!
P.S. The Citadel black aerosol is pretty good for generic all-purpose black paint - it has a nice dull finish and seems to stick well to anything, have used it on a few Athearn BB loco truck sideframes to remove the “plastic” appearence.
I bought a bunch of F body shells for a $1 on Ebay and decided to play with them and make my own freelance railroad. I spray painted one Testors Italian Red gloss and it was real nice looking. After a while I said nah looks like a Ferrari and i took a black marksalot to the roof… Hey that looked pretty good! Then I hit it with dullcote and viola instant MKT F7 added grab irons horns etc and looks great. I weathered it with washes and some rust paint here and there. I still need the nose hearld decal and it will be done. I’m going to do the samething for a green one. The BN F’s look similar to the KATY Greens minus the yellow stripes. A fairly common paint layout . Looks good and you can try it withseveral colors a blue , orange or what ever.
Link to the real one
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/mkt/mkt80a-arp.jpg
RMax1
You’re really going to do a lot better job with an airbrush…you can get a small 2 gallon compressor and a good air brush for about $130.00 for both…if you do use a brush, be sure you thin the paint because it will dry and leave really horrible looking blobs of paint everywhere…if you use cans then I can’t help you…every can i’ve used has always ran under the tape, put on too much paint,and generally created a mess rather than a nice paint job…the airbrush is the best way to go and it’s easy to use after you get the hang of it…Chuck