During the last winter months, I assembled some car kits. When it is time to paint a car that is completely assembled, whatever type it is: box car, tank car or flat car, how do you handle it?
Guy:
The car(s) will need to be washed, in mild detergent soapy water.
Then rinsed, with a final rinse of distilled/de-ionized water.
Then air dried.
When rinsing and setting out, and thereafter, I would recommend using fresh clean disposable vinyl painters gloves. Every time you go to touch one.
Dave
Additional to Dave:
Be SURE to fully rinse off the detergent. I recommend warm water. The distilled final rinse sure sounds like a good idea, though I haven’t, yet.
For spraying the old standard plastic boxcar shell, I put it on an empty paper towel carboard tube.
For something like a tank car or a flat, I build a support rig and screw it on at the truck mount location. And then do spectacular gymnastic hand gyrations, as necessary.
Ed
Before I paint a car I spray it with mineral spirits with the airbrush, then use compressed air to dry it at about 30 PSI. After this it is only handled while wearing gloves.
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I wash and rinse all parts before assembly, but I have never washed an assembled car with water and detergent.
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I use only solvent based paint and an airbrush. Maybe painting with water soluable paints require additional preparation work.
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-Kevin
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Ditto on the wash with soap/water, then full rinse. Then rinse with the distilled water. Air dry.
Then, only touch with gloves, never bare handed. Fingerprints from giants are not prototypical…
OK guys, I clearly understand the need of a good washing and the use of gloves, and I thank you for the replies, but what I wanted to know is how I can spray paint (primer) or airbrush a car whitout handling it in my hands. I saw some tutorials about painting cars but, every time, it was made with an open body box car. Now I have a few completely assembled cars and I would like to know how they are “handled” while I am using the airbrush or spray can.
Hey Guy:
I made up several very simple holders using 6" (or so) wooden skewers and blocks of wood. I use two separate skewers with their own blocks on each car. That allows me to use the same system regardless of how far apart the mounting holes are. The blocks of wood need to be big enough to be stable but not so big that they interfere with each other when you have a skewer in each truck mounting hole.
You have to be careful not to have the skewers fall out if you are moving the car around so you want to push them in fairly firmly, but not so hard that you damage the threads. If I ever get around to it I’ll build a painting turntable so I don’t have to put the airbrush down and use two hands to turn the car. To do the roof I just tilt the skewers over a bit.
The skewers are also great for painting truck sideframes.
I think that is more like what you had in mind when you asked the question.
Regards,
Dave
skewers, one end shoved in 2" pink foam, the other shoved in the bolster…
I have a turntable airbrushing stand. This will full multi-directional allow access to all but the underside.
Most cars are set on their trucks, minus wheelsets, and go for a spin as needed during painting.
Anytging that needs the underside painted gets a custom prop set, to allow it to rest either on its side or upside down, without marring any surfaces. Most of my custom props are old rags, paper towels, scrap styrofoam pieces, etc…
I try to build all house cars with a removeable floor, (even when the instructions tell me to “cement the floor in place”) then paint the car with one hand (nitrile-gloved) inside the carbody.
Most such cars can be easily modified with a couple of pieces of .125"x.125" styrene cemented into their interiors, then, with the floor temporarily in place, drilled and tapped for screws.
For cars which can’t be built “open”, like tank cars, I simply hold the car in one hand and paint part of it, then let it dry for a few minutes while I paint another car. Most airbrushed paint dries to the touch within a few minutes, and can easily be handled soon after that to continue the painting process.
I usually paint in batches…10 or 15 cars, and sometimes as many as three or four dozen, so there’s lots of time for partially-painted cars to dry enough that they can be handled.
Here’s a bunch under construction and just about ready for painting…
While most of the cars shown will be painted “boxcar red”, very few will be the same shade, as I alter the paint as I work, adding various colours to impart some variety to the basic colour.
Wayne
Wayne:
I can just see me messing up your method totally. With my luck, everything would have fingerprints all over them[D)].
Let me ask a technical question please. Are you using acrylics or solvent based paints, I can’t remember? I use acrylics and I am reluctant to touch the paint until the next day.
Thanks,
Dave
P.S. How are you doing? Well, I hope. We haven’t communicated directly in a while.
I leave the floors out, so I can use these:
http://www.micromark.com/Hold-It-Easy_2
I paint the floors face-up on a scrap piece of plywood.
An old empty can holds 2 of these handles uprigt for drying.
Note: the sponges on these harden and shrink after time, so they may start to slip out depending n the carbody width.
Tank you everyone. I will give a try at the skewers. Up to now I used different kinds of support with Wayne’s technique.
Hi dave,
Just buy yourself a cheap Lazy Suzan. If I remerber weel, mine was bougth at IKEA for around 5$. It’s 18’’ in diameter and fits easily in my spray booth.
Hello Guy,
My method is simple, I use a metal coat hanger: I cut the top part and open it up to form a “V” and simply insert the open top of the “V” in the shell.
Other method I use is by putting a piece of masking tape sticky side up on a painter’s stick, then sit the shell on it.
By using one of these two methods, you have one hand free to manipulate the spray gun and the other to turn the piece to be painted.
Good luck.
Almost forgot…I also have a piece of 2"x2" mounted on a scrap piece of 1"x3" base. The 2"x2" was shaved to fit inside a boxcar or hopper (wanted a snug fit, but didn’t want the sides bulging). Once the car floor is removed, it sits on the 2"x2"
I also have a $4, 9" plastic spinning table (lazy susan) that I bought at the kitchen store in the outlet mall for rotating model during painting without touching…
Very good posts here guys.
For painting freight cars, I totally agree that a Lazy Susan is a simple and excellent piece of equipment to have.When I started airbrushing back in the 80’s, I found that holding a shell in the air or turning one on a fixed stand to be a bit tedious and winded up with a few “boo-boos”.
Simply rotating a shell on a lazy susan with a gentle nudge of a finger makes things so much easier. Inexpensive versions are easy to find at your local Kmart, and Walmart.
Some here may laugh, but for passenger car shells I took a scrapped, 3/8" thick resin bathroom partition that my employer threw out (thanks!).
After sanitizing it, using a jig-saw, I cut it into a rectangular shape and mounted five threaded 3/8" studs on to it and secured them with fasterners. Next, using the same partition material, I cutting a variety of 3" to 7" long blocks (3/8" wide), and drilled holes on the center of each one. Each block slides on easily on top of the threaded studs and can be turned with a finger. Total cost: $1.80 for the studs/fasteners).
Now I can spin any passenger car, carbody locomotive, or any model shell with a bottom/top opening:
On the 3rd photo you can see the small block that I used to mount the Busch Bus on.
Although I can paint up to 5 passenger car/locomotive shells at one time, I’ve cut back to airbrushing a maximum of two shells at one time. I realized that I wanted to enjoy the process and feel relaxed rather than putting unnecessary pressure on myself to “Get it done!” [;)][:P]
I paint a lot of smaller than Train rolling stock so it is a not all one size fits all thing. Some hollow truck cabs for instance are not the same in design. So about 50yrs. ago I came up with a simple solution…Balsa wood, shaped to fit inside different model, trucks, cars, ships, box cars etc. Depending how tall the model is, after shaping the Balsa wood top so it fits inside what I want it to hold by friction, I glue it with yellow carpenters glue to a 1x2, 1x3 , 1x4 depending on how heavy the model is and I hold that base when I have to air brush the entire model. You can pick up bags of different shape Balsa wood that have about thirty pieces in them pretty cheap at craft stores. If I am going to do a lot of the same model, I mark the bottom of the base for what it’s for. I must have 25 types in a drawer.
The Link is only for an example:
I also never use a spray booth either, found it unnescessary with an air brush, also many things I paint would not fit in a spray booth anyway. I have a 10ft long bench near a window in the center. An air brush unlike rattle cans Do not throw overspray all over the place, including the air, due to the propellant in them.
For painting many smaller parts, I use 3m double sided tape on a piece of cardboard or wood with holes drilled in it to accept the Micro-Brushes that I use once the tip is no good. I cut it off and stick in in the part and put it in the drilled hole. Hold it in My hand for painting and stick back in the hole to dry. I also do not use a
I put a turntable in my spray booth when I first built it, and used it only once. I found it to be of no use whatsoever. It’s fine, I suppose, if you’re painting the roof of something, but it limits the directions from which you can spray, and, depending on the paint you’re using (Scalecoat, f’rinstance), which may remain tacky for several days…howya gonna lift if off the turntable to paint the next item without signing your work with fingerprints?
While I did say that I use my hand inside of house cars, I misspoke, as I do have a supply of various lengths of wood (1"x1", 1"x2", etc.) beside the spray booth, and usually paint stuff “on a stick”. Most items have raised details, and spraying from one direction or a single angle from any direction leaves too much opportunity for missed spots…the bottom of ladder rungs, or the inside surfaces of sill steps.
I use both types, Dave, although I started in the hobby in the '50s, and at that time, Floquil was, in my opinion, the one paint to use. When acrylics became available and popular, I tried Floquil’s Polly S, but most of the colours were not suited to airbrushing, while some were very good for use with a brush - I painted lots of diesels in this paint scheme…
…using Polly S with a brush, and did dozens in this scheme…
…first using Polly S with a brush, and then later using Floquil with an airbrush. In both cases, this required the first painting to be in the colour separations opposite of the final