Painting & Weathering Models (Tips & Tricks)

I forget the one guy's name that put me on to this?? He was an N scale Missouri Pacific modeler and custom painter from around Springfield. I have a couple of his MP hopper cars. He took any old road name car and sanded them enough to remove any raised lettering and painted the cars (In the case of the hoppers, black) and decaled them. The cars I bougt from him seemed to have rivets and fine detail. They looked like factory jobs. I'm not a skilled painter at all, but according to him, the factory paint was the "primer." They looked good to me...

Tom

 

I did something similar many years ago. I kitbashed an SW1 (this was before the Walthers model) and painted it for a grain elevator, which meant making my own decals, etc. This thing was weeks in the making. Anyway, it was finally finished and ready for dullcote so I grab the Testors spray can and blast away - with a can of gloss yellow! Ruined...

That's when I decided to airbrush dullcote. Much better results in both the finish ...and the color!

 

I have figured out what the stripper is, it is Castrol Super Clean Degreaser that can be purchased at any auto parts store or on-line at Amazon.com

 

Even with the help of a tooth brush, a 6 hr alcohol soak provided spotty results at best at removing Testors acrylic paint that I brushed on a HO scale Bachman B30-7 shell a few months ago. Now I have it soaking in Pine-Sol. If that doesn't work, I have Easy-off (recommended by Testors) and brake fluid standing by. I am just trying to experiment in order from the least harmful to the most harmful. I'm not sure I got the order right but at least I'm trying.