Should I paint a Kadee boxcar before decaling it, or decal right on the plastic and then dullcoat?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I have two undecorated Kadee 40’ boxcars molded in boxcar red. They came assembled. My plan was to paint them boxcar red, glosscoat them prior to decaling, and dullcoat them after decaling. Then I was thinking - they are already molded in boxcar red, so I could potentially decal them in bare plastic then dullcoat them. Have people done that, and how do they look once they have been dullcoated?

I could just give it a try, but I hate to waste a set of decals if the idea is doomed to a poor-looking result, so thought I’d ask!

2

The only issue I could see occuring is how well the decal will “stick” to the bare plastic.

Prep it well, it might work, but I’ve always been to afraid to try it myself.

3

I think that Kadee has designed the molded color to be decaled on. But with their decals or ones similar to them. They’re sorta pale and translucent. But I’m pretty sure other decals would work.

Something that may help, I just discovered, but so far I have no experience with. Tamiya makes decal setting solution called Mark Fit and Mark Fit Strong. They recommend using the stuff underneath where a decal will go, thus improving the fix when you go over once the decal is down. Might work for you here.

4

I have never applied decals directly to bare plastic. Kadee prints their cars, so the surface is probably finished to accept printing.

I do not recall ever reading anything from Kadee that suggested applying decals directly to plastic.

But… they did offer cars decorated with “Data Only”, so I guess it is possible, maybe.

I paint all my cars lots of different hues of “Boxcar Red” to get variety in my fleet.

-Kevin

5

At the very least, I would suggest painting a glosscote first.

Then decal, then dullcote .

6

Hi Timmy,

Haven’t seen you around much lately, and you have been missed.

Good to hear from you again. I really miss your amazing projects.

-Kevin

7

Yes, decals will stick to clean plastic just fine. Dull coat afterwards and it will look fine.

I use isopropyl alcohol to clean the plastic first because I’m lazy. Ordinary dish detergent in water is also an efficient degreaser but make sure the detergent is cleaned off before the decals go on. Dull coat wont adhere well to soap residue which is why I use alcohol.

8

This is an example of an undecorated Kadee HO scale PS-1 boxcar painted with Scalecoat II paint (color #2014) and decorated with custom Rail Graphics decals. The decals were set with Daco Strong decal fluid. Then the model was sealed with Testors 1260 Dullcote.

I would be interested to see the “just fine” results of applying decals directly over unpainted plastic.

-Kevin

9

Quite a few years ago, the owner of a now long-gone hobbyshop asked me to letter a number of unpainted freight cars…“no need to paint 'em.”

After applying the decals, I wished that I had painted the cars, and if I had had another set of the decals, that’s what I would have done.

I’ve been in this hobby since the mid-'50s, and have learned quite a few things, some by trial and error, others from professionals willing to share their knowledge, and sometimes simply following my instincts.
While you may find the following overly long and tedious, feel free to cherry-pick what you think to be appropriate, and skip the rest.
I have found the complete procedure to yield very good results.

First, I would suggest that you wash the car (or locomotive, structure, etc.), using warm water and dish detergent, then rinse it thoroughly with water and let it air-dry.

Once it’s dry, airbrush it in an appropriate colour(s), then set it aside to let the paint dry/cure/harden, depending on the type of paint you use.

Once that is done, airbrush the entire areas which will be decalled with Glosscote (or your preferred clear gloss) then let it fully dry until there’s no odour of solvent present on the car. Don’t apply the gloss only where the decals will be applied - for rolling stock and locomotives, those areas are usually the sides and ends - cover them completely with the gloss, even if the amount of decal work will be very minimal. Allow the clear coat to fully cure/harden - there should be no noticeable odour to it, (this minimises the chance of the setting solutions reacting with the clear coat).

Next, use a sharp blade to cut the needed decals from the sheet, keeping as far away from the lettering as possible. Once you have all of the required lettering free of the main sheet, use a sharp blade (re-sharpen or replace as necessary) and working on a hard surface (I use a sheet of glass on

10

I think paint looks better than plastic, even plastic with DullCote on top of it. My favorite paint for boxcars is red auto primer from a rattle can. Rustoleum or Krylon is good. I have good results with both. I just decal on top of the auto primer after it is good and dry, I have never bothered to gloss coat under decals. I dislike the glossy plastic look on new truck, so I paint them too.

11

Paint and decals on that boxcar look really good.

12

Wayne,

I, for one, am appreciate the amount of information put into your post. I read every word.

13

Thanks for your kind words, Chip, they’re much appreciated.

Wayne

14

Kadee cars that are lettered at the factory are painted. I don’t know about the undecorated ones.

Decades ago I put decals directly on a plastic car, Although they looked good at first, a few years later they were peeling off. I don’t think that I overcoated the decals though.

15

Thanks all. Wayne, I didn’t put in my original post, but having done other decaling (over paint) I have used your glosscoating over the decals before dullcoating, and it results in a much better result than simply dullcoating over the decals.

If I do decal without painting, I’d first glosscoat to be sure I have a good surface for the decals to adhere to. My biggest concern is will the plastic, after various gloss and dullcoatings, look good, or look like clearcoated plastic. I think I may experiment a bit and see what happens. If I do that, I will let you know how things go.

16

Those who remember the old old Kurtz-Kraft PS1 boxcar kits (89 cents!) from the late 1950s might remember that they were lettered on raw unpainted plastic. That was considered one of the negatives at the time. There was no DullCote then and the lusterless varnishes at the time were thick and yellowing. I have added decal ACI labels to those cars and I used a tortillon to burnish the car side to give it some natural gloss before I did so, followed by SolvaSet and when that dried, DullCote to seal it all.

Apart from that I cannot speak to the issue of totally decaling on “raw” plastic. Like any new skill I would need practice. So before using good decals on a good Kadee boxcar I think I’d try a scrap decal from my “odd and ends” envelope on the raw flat backside of, say, a structure kit which has also been molded in plastic of a boxcar red color, or close to it. I’d also want to see how well SolvaSet or similar fluid works on raw plastic so I’d look for a part of the backside that isn’t purely flat surface but has a feature that you’d want the decal to snuggle down over.

Even if it “worked” however I doubt whether it is really the best result possible.

What I can testify to is that DullCote does a rather remarkable job of making raw unpainted plastic look like it is painted, even weathered. As part of one of my weathering clinics where I pass examples around the room, I took the cheapest of cheap train set yellow boxcars (50 cents at a swap meet), lettered (not decals, probably a heat lettering process like Lionel’s or maybe silk screen) “Union Pacific” on raw very high gloss yellow plastic, cut out one entire side, masked 1/2 horizonally and DullCoted half the car side. The difference is remarkable, the garish and toylike lettering and coloring on the car actually ended up looking pretty good on the DullCoted half, and the molded on details looked better once they were no longe

17

I haven’t done a Kadee car, but I’ve decaled several factory painted “data only” cars from Accurail for my freelance railroad. I always spray the car with a gloss finish first, then add the decals, then seal it all in with flat finish. I’ve used Walthers Solvaset to remove factory printed lettering from cars, so I don’t think I’d want to put down decals and use Solvaset on them without the lettering I wanted to keep being protected by the gloss coat.

18

When was a youngling, I buil a lot of 1/25 scale cars that were “molded in color”.

I put the decals right on the plastic. They always looked bad. Maybe for a seven year old I did OK.

-Kevin