New Loco

[Mike Griff]

Hi Lads n Lasses if present, (greets with low bow)
My first scratch built loco ( fanfare followed by loud raspberry). Its almost there, the boiler is a piece of half inch Qualpex (irish flexible plumbing) it seems to work ok  but can be off round a tad and tends to be selective about the glue it accepts, drawing pin head in standard place, the whistle is the spike from the drwing pin, i used n-guage track pins for the vac pipes, minus the heads and a bit of drinking straw a la standard practice. Quite pleased really. I now need to camoflage it with some Halfords car spray.Mike.http://www.flickr.com/photos/62761729@N04/

[B.Meldon]

It may be a good idea to test the paint on other samples of the plastic you have used to make sure there is no reaction before you spray paint the loco.

Brian Meldon

[Mike Griff]

Thanks Brian, I don,t have the paint yet but will bare that in mind, i was intending to use grey primer first then my chosen colours. Mike

[B.Meldon]

Thanks Brian, I don,t have the paint yet but will bare that in mind, i was intending to use grey primer first then my chosen colours. Mike

Others may have a different opinion on this but it has been my experience that if you are using Halfords satin black then no primer is needed. (I never use it anyway.)
In this way you can retain maximum sharpness of any detail on the model, but it will also show up any blemishes in the surface.
I would also personally recommend avoiding a gloss finish on any models, they just look wrong to me in gloss. Someone explained to me once it was all about the frequency of light at sale sizes and someone else once said that a gloss finish on a 00 model was equal to a

[Mike Griff]

Thanks Brian, magic tips. I was wondering about degreasing and had concerns about the thickness of the primer, i reckon you just saved my rivet section, said the conductor to the first bassoon :),ta Mike

[pilotfriend]

The best primer for plastic is a grey plastic primer supplied by Humbrol. It is sufficiently fine not to cover detail