Devon Sinsley said:
Couple of thoughts. When drilling holes on a finished surface cover the surface with masking tape mark the holes on the tape and drill through the tape. When done remove the tape. Learned that from my model car days.
My experience masking over metallics is they don’t solidify well and tape pulls them up in layers. So I’m paranoid about tape, even the blue and green painters’ tapes. Am wondering about using post it notes to shield boiler jacketing.
Another lower adhesive materiel is frisket paper. https://www.amazon.com/Grafix-Purpose-Frisket-9-Inch-12-Inch/dp/B004QVBQBG I have used this stuff for custom stenciling in my car days as well as for etching glass. It is very low adhesive and for just protecting a surface for drilling should work.
As for lifting metallic paints have you oversprayed them with clear? Also from my car days I would paint my color paint and then blast on the clear coat (just like the real car guys do it) to protect it and put a shine on it. But they make clears in all sheens. Now I used dull coat to affix my weather stuff. A couple coats of clear should hold down you metalic and then you can apply a low adhesive substrate. Also are you priming with a self etching primer. That should help bind top coats. I am just now experimenting with it and can’t back what I suspect.
I think a good paint scheme I should think would be a self etching primer, paint, and then a healthy layer of clear. I would think this should hold down metalics. Just my thoughts anyways. Also Not sure if you know this or not but several thin coats adhere better than one massive one. Not sure how acrylics do in this department but it works for me in enamel (again car days.)
I wish I had my car pictures. I lost them in a tragic computer meltdown but one thing I could do is paint cars. And I used Model Masters exclusively and I never had trouble with metallics lifting. I was thinking about this a bit more. One of my favorite paint jobs which won me a grand champion was a '40 Ford sedan. I bring this up because it was almost entirely metallic. It had silver fenders and the rest was copper. I then combined the two and ghosted flames on it so the copper barley showed on the silver and the silver barely showed on the copper. I say all this to brag for one but also to say it required extensive masking.
It got me thinking about what I did back then that may be helpful. First rough up the surface to allow the paint to bite. If your doing a well defined area then mask and then rough up the surface ever so light. Then if a base coat is going down then prime first. Two or three light coats. Then color coat as many as five light coats. The when all the color is on spray as many as 7-10 coats of clear. This may be more than is needed on a loco but for a top quality car finish this is what I did. If we applied the same technique to locos we should have a durable paint job that shouldn’t lift.
Devon Sinsley said:
I wish I had my car pictures. I lost them in a tragic computer meltdown but one thing I could do is paint cars. And I used Model Masters exclusively and I never had trouble with metallics lifting. I was thinking about this a bit more. One of my favorite paint jobs which won me a grand champion was a '40 Ford sedan. I bring this up because it was almost entirely metallic. It had silver fenders and the rest was copper. I then combined the two and ghosted flames on it so the copper barley showed on the silver and the silver barely showed on the copper. I say all this to brag for one but also to say it required extensive masking.
It got me thinking about what I did back then that may be helpful. First rough up the surface to allow the paint to bite. If your doing a well defined area then mask and then rough up the surface ever so light. Then if a base coat is going down then prime first. Two or three light coats. Then color coat as many as five light coats. The when all the color is on spray as many as 7-10 coats of clear. This may be more than is needed on a loco but for a top quality car finish this is what I did. If we applied the same technique to locos we should have a durable paint job that shouldn’t lift.
Sean,
This is actually a sore spot with me for a couple of reasons. I really loved model cars and in my late 20’s and early 30’s I took car modeling pretty serious, more so even than my trains. I was a sort of competitive modeler, at least at the local level. I did pretty darn good. My detail work was on par but where I could really shine was paint. I had 10 or so cars that were top notch (and a lot that weren’t). I had pictures of all of them as well, some of the first digital pictures I ever had. Well I had a computer melt down about 10 or 12 years ago and lost all the pictures. That was sad enough but a couple years prior to that, in a fit of childish rage that I am not proud of, I got pissed off and smashed every one of my cars and threw them away. In a succession of a few months they kept getting broken even stored in cases and on shelves so I got mad and lost it and destroyed the lot along with the ribbons and trophies. There is no evidence of my work to show. Like I said not a proud moment in my life.
So unfortunately I can not relive those glory days (ha if you want to know the real story I can bore you privately) and it is probably for the best.
Things happen. And with having autism; bipolar (there is debate about that one); and PTSD; plus several physical neurological and endocrine troubles; I think I can grasp some possibilities around the concept.
The V&T boiler is sprayed with spray can paint from either Krylon or RustOleum, I forget. Given the troubles with my hands I don’t airbrush that much any more.
Well get some krylon clear in whatever sheen you desire and spray several coats. I think it should help hold the paint and then using so low tack tape or frisket paper should work to protect it.
Or just drill very very carefully. Do a very small pilot hole that will hold the tip of the larger bit so it has less desire to slip.
Forrest Scott Wood said:
Devon Sinsley said:
Couple of thoughts. When drilling holes on a finished surface cover the surface with masking tape mark the holes on the tape and drill through the tape. When done remove the tape. Learned that from my model car days.My experience masking over metallics is they don’t solidify well and tape pulls them up in layers. So I’m paranoid about tape, even the blue and green painters’ tapes. Am wondering about using post it notes to shield boiler jacketing.
We used to use cellophane tape on pearls to prevent chipping the edges when drilling.
FWIW
Paper dulls fast and post-its might grab the bit.
John
As it happens, drill is crossing the masking instead of going in to the masking.
Posed this for photo - am having muscle spasm in hands to day, no train work is going to happen.
IMG_4175_30 by Forrest Wood, on Flickr
Perfect. Get well my friend