Espeefan's Passenger Car Modeling

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Did a butt load of railings and grabs yesterday!
grabs.jpeg


Still not done. Four more A units to do, and all eyelets on the roofs. :oops:
 


How do you get paint to stick to brass? I've tried washing, sanding, primer, and straight paint (brushed and sprayed). Some times it sticks, most times it rubs off with my fingernail. I've been using Tamiya since it is readily available out here. I can get Rustoleum on base, but very limited in colors. Would a clear coat help keep it on?
 
Kusojiji said:
How do you get paint to stick to brass? I've tried washing, sanding, primer, and straight paint (brushed and sprayed). Some times it sticks, most times it rubs off with my fingernail. I've been using Tamiya since it is readily available out here. I can get Rustoleum on base, but very limited in colors. Would a clear coat help keep it on?
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By chance have you tried soaking the pieces in vinegar first before painting? I used to do this when painting galvanized metal with a primer.
 
Kusojiji said:
How do you get paint to stick to brass? I've tried washing, sanding, primer, and straight paint (brushed and sprayed). Some times it sticks, most times it rubs off with my fingernail. I've been using Tamiya since it is readily available out here. I can get Rustoleum on base, but very limited in colors. Would a clear coat help keep it on?
Click to expand...
Over the years I've tried a couple of methods. I got my best results by soaking the model in lacquer thinner and scrubbing with a tooth brush. I tried the vinegar method, and I found that if you can eat your etching solution, it's not really strong enough to do the job, though some people swear by it. Early on I invested in a Paasche air eraser and a large can of pumice and began grit blasting everything. Later on I invested in a grit blasting booth by Skatblast. Harbor freight has one of these for not very much money (you have to assemble it, where mine came ready to use). The cabinet is the cheap part of the investment though. You need a compressor with enough "lungs" to run it effectively. Cabinets use a bunch of air! I also use solvent based paint systems, and I think these adhere better to metal. You might try sanding with higher grit numbers, 1200 and up to give you some profile. If you are an apartment dweller, some of this may not help. I also did find one paint system that won't stick to brass: Tru-Color. it's an ink, not a paint and you have to prime with a different system, as it will peel off bare brass with your fingernail (guess how I know). out here in the midwestern USA we have our ranch style homes with huge basements, so I have a large workshop. :) Unfortunately I don't have much experience with acrylics on brass, but I have talked with other painters who have not had issues. Here like with soldering: everything must be clean! If you go up this thread to page 1 post #3, you'll see what I do.
 
Hello All! Still drilling and installing F unit shell railings and grabs! Tedious repetitive work. I decided I needed a break and moved over to my Golden Gate Depot cars. You may remember them from up thread. They were a mixed bag. Baggage cars and coaches were OK, RPO and 72 ft baggage cars too short. They all had issues of some sort, but with a little work can be rehabilitated. Now while I feel I shouldn't have to rehabilitate a $139 model, it happens, and the SP modeling community can be difficult. (kind of like saying "water can be wet".) So anyhow, they are reasonable but not perfect. One issue I had with the coaches (the best of the lot) was the window castings. They tried to do a flush mount window, and it didn't turn out well. Take a look at the green coach. Funky! The window castings are heat staked in, and I was able to pop them out and replace them with .010 clear styrene on the two-tone gray coach. I shaved the inside with a #17 blade so the styrene would lay flat, and I think the result is much better.

GGD Window replacements.jpeg


I'll install window shades of course.

I also need to add passengers. These are all amputees, as the seats are very shallow, but you can't tell other than the HO scale screaming. :oops:

GGD Passengers and lighting.jpeg


Note the LED strip in the body. Two rods extend into a contact strip in the chassis, and the lighting is reasonable, not arc light bright. Tamiya clear yellow will diffuse it further if such is your taste. Now I'm sitting here trying to decide if I want to get rid of the factory diaphragms and substitute Coach Yard ones. They look better but at $30 a pair, Ouch! Gotta think on that one!
 
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DeaconKC said:
On the $30 diaphragms, will it bother you everytime you see the car, or just while building it?
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Good question! I don't know yet. I'll probably need to see both types together in a train. It doesn't bother me to run these cars together with Walthers cars in a train, and these are actually more detailed than the Wally ones. If they blend in reasonably well, I'll probably leave them alone. if its a screaming case of "One of these things is not like the others!" they'll have to go. For comparison, here's each type:

GGD:
GGD Diaphragms.jpeg


Coach Yard:

Car End.jpeg


I'll be done with these by Thursday, and they'll go to the club for testing. We'll know then!
 
Morning All! Rain the last two nights requires me to mow again, so that's happening today. Only four days since the last cut!. I got the three 60 ft coaches upgraded. When I put them away this morning I noticed an "All Day Lunch" car in the box. I actually have two, one GGD model, and one brass car. The plastic model gives me a nice template for an interior for the brass model, and I have the necessary stuff to cobble an interior for the brass model. For the plastic car, almost everything is there. What you see below is accurate for the car, per the SP historical society's coach book as far as seats go, and the basic kitchen area. These were different from the News Agent coach in that they served hot food, though the menu was limited. Chili, Ravioli, hot dogs, coffee and tea, plus the snacks offered on the News Agent cars. A step up but not quite full diner service. You mostly went up and bought what you wanted at the window, then sat down, but some cars had a guy that made the rounds with a big coffee urn. They appeared on locals. I have one photo of a four-car train behind a Consolidation, three coaches and an ADL, none of them air conditioned. Cool short train!

I've just started here. The kitchen interior will get silver paint and a server. The partitions will get Depot Buff. New windows as well. I've roughed in a serving window. I'll have to see if I can find counter chairs somewhere in all my junk as there were three counter chairs in the real thing. I even managed to get some skinny figures into the dining table seats!
All Day Lunch Chassis.jpeg


The shell is in decent shape, it just needs those funky windows replaced. The large kitchen window on the left had me stonkered, as it is a double hung type, and it took a bit to figure out how to simulate that. The factory plastic one just had a molded in line. I'm going to do it with layers of clear styrene and some sort of sash.

All Day Lunch Shell.jpeg

Oh well, off to mow the lawn!
 
Here's the first All Day Lunch finished. I decided to recycle the large modified kitchen window from the factory window strip. I left the shade off because I wanted the kitchen and attendant visible. Why do all this detail then cover it up? 😁 The other windows were replaced with clear styrene and shades added per the usual practice.

ADL Finished.jpeg


I'll only show the green car when it's done, as it's essentially the same arrangement. I'll piece the interior together from my stash of Walthers interior parts and seats. It also needs diaphragms, as it came with those crappy PSC ones. I painted up a set yesterday. After the F units and these passenger cars are finished, I'm going to pivot to a structure I need to finish. No new thread, I'll just keep all the projects here. :)
 


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