Antonio, question for you, I’m going to be doing this in the near furture. My passenger cars will have about the bottom 1/4 of car painted in 2 tones of blue.
Should I mask that ara off first, before Alclading, and do the paint after? or can I mask the Alclad, then do the painting? Not sure how to approach this.
Mike.
Hi Mike.
Glad to help but more details would helpful [;)]. Are these Walthers, Rivarossi’s, Con Cor, Athearn, E&B Valley, or Model Powers’? Are the bottom 1/4 sections smooth-sided or fluted? Are the car shells skirted un-skirted? These factors can make a difference in determining which route to take.
Ok, I’m going to assume that your units are fluted Walthers Budds.
After paint-stripping and cleaning your shells, apply 1 to 2 coats of the lighter gray basecoat foundation to the entire surface of each unit. Make sure that the finishes are very smooth. If using a brand, other than Scale Coat II, seal the gray with a smooth, high gloss clear. (Practice on scrap pieces first, just before spraying).
Once the gray basecoat is cured and you are satisfied with the finish, mask-off the upper 3/4 of the shells with tape and paper. It’s important that your masking tape is of good quality and that the edge for the top band of your blue band is sealed FIRMLY. Burnish the edge as need. Just before spraying, an old-school trick is to airbrush a very thin coat of clear to the tape’s edge, wait a few minutes and then follow up with your color.
After sealing your blue bands with clear coat, remove the tape carefully. Check the painted edges and the upper sections of the shell(s) and make any needed corrections.
Make sure that the upper gray sections are still glossy and smooth. Once your blue bands’ clear has hardened; carefully mask them off and burnish the tape.
Clean your surfaces. Apply the Alclad 2 as normal on the suggested procedure. Let me know if this is helpful [:D].
Thanks antonio, the cars are Athearn corrugated sides, I was just wonder what comes first, the paint or the Alclad.
I haven’t determined how wide the blue stripping will be. I may even be able to do it with decals, applied over the Alclad.
I’ll do as you suggest, and paint the blue before the Alclad.
Thank you!
Mike.
Hi Mike,
Cool thing about painting is that there’s often mulitple options. Applying decal striping is an interesting idea, but (for me) it’s a pain getting a wide strip to settle into fluted lines!
A friend of mine, who has a lot of patience, is able to to that. However, I’ve found painting to be a much easier approach.
[:D]