Paint shop – 2

Another batch of freight cars is headed to the paint booth!

I washed six of my undecorated HO scale freight car fleet using a soft bristle toothbrush, Dawn dish detergent, and warm water. After these models dry, I’ll review the details to make sure everything has stayed affixed to them. These will be set onto various paint stands next. I had already painted the separate underframes of a couple of these cars with a rattle can of flat brown color.

Before I fire up the airbrush, I like to plan the primer color for each car. I use Vallejo German red-brown and Desert tan colors, and I have a small bottle of light grey. The primer shade can affect the appearance of the final freight car color.

One of the models is an Armour reefer that will have a mostly yellow final color. Another is a Pennsylvania Railroad X24 automobile box car that will have the early PRR freight car color that leans towards orange. Those cars will receive the Desert tan primer. I think I’ll use the lighter primer on an Illinois Central automobile box car, too.

The other three cars will be painted with the German red-brown primer. I’ll paint the cars with the lighter color first, then the cars with the red-brown primer. Planning out the colors eases the paint and clean up processes.

I learned a lesson the last time I painted models. I experienced paint clogging in my Iwata airbrush with the first two models. It was very frustrating so I turned to the Internet for guidance. I found a couple of sites that suggested using more Flow Improver than Thinner when airbrushing. One modeler mentioned the thinner can accelerate paint drying and can lead to nozzle clogging. The recommendation was to use a mix that had more Flow Improver than Thinner. Here’s a YouTube video that I found to be very helpful.

Once I started using this new mixture, the paint flowed much better over a longer period of time. I also forced myself to use the double-action airbrush appropriately by closing the trigger for the paint before releasing the trigger for the air. This is something that I have completely missed over the years. Releasing the trigger for air while it is pulled back for the paint leads to paint clogging in the nozzle. A lesson learned.

With a nice day here, it was easy to spray the primer coat onto all six models. These will be ready for the freight car colors in a day or two.

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