Has anyone made a wheel painting mask jig for their large scale wheels?
This is a pretty common thing in HO scale. They look like this:
I have a lot of LGB metal wheels I’d like to paint over the summer. And a jig like this would make things a lot easier. So just wondering if anyone has done this for their wheels and have any tips on how to make one?
I just use rubber O-Rings sized just under the wheel diameter and about 3/16 cross section and some wire insulation on the axle ends.
Matt,
I usually paint my wheels while they are still in the trucks. I wear nitrile gloves and slowly rotate the wheels while I airbrush or brush-on Pollyscale acrylics (now Micromark) all the way around. As a bonus, my truck frames can get painted the same rusty color as the wheels. After a few laps around the railroad the paint wears off the contact zones of the treads and flanges. Might not be a great idea if you’re using track power…
Daktah John said:
I just use rubber O-Rings
Clever, thanks for the tip
Rockwall Canyon Jeff said:
I usually paint my wheels while they are still in the trucks…Might not be a great idea if you’re using track power…
All battery power, so shouldn’t be a problem. Although I like the LGB wheels because of their shiny treads. Kind of why I want to mask the treads.
I just put some tape on the axle ends and paint the wheels with my rattle cans. After 30 min to an hour of running around the railroad the paint wears off the treads, and they are nice and shiny. And I use track power, but with only one or 2 cars running around with painted treads at a time, the rails don’t get too dirty
Matt- I use a similar jig like the one you have pictured. Mine is only for one wheel set at a time. I use a very small (even tiny) plastic hollow wall anchor to mask the axle ends.
-Kevin.
I bypass the jig need altogether and paint wheels with one of those pre-industrial hairy sticks; then again, I only have a grand total of twenty three G scale cars, all slowly acquired since 2009.
But, yes, a spray painting jig is a grand idea.
I paint the entire wheel, then use Q tips dipped in acetone to clean the tread.
I’m with John. I paint the entire wheel (Brush), and then give the tread a spin and touch it with a very fine sanding stick. Then polish it with a cloth to get the minute dust off. The method seems to work well. (I don’t, however, use Acetone as it is pretty deadly stuff if you don’t wear gloves and a mask.) I don’t paint the journal end at all, plus I lube it so that no paint will adhere if I’m sloppy. I have tried using latex liquid masking and that gave crappy results. Masking tape is a pain too even when you cut it to width, because of the angle of the tread.
I don’t worry about it at all. Just squirt the paint on, and when its dry to touch, I take a cloth and wipe off the axle ends. A few laps around the layout takes care of the rest.
Most often, with Gary Raymond’s steel wheels, I let the ambient dihydro monoxide take care of the coloring. It only takes a few weeks.
Seems to me that anything else is just a solution in search of a problem. But, that’s just me. (http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-innocent.gif)
I am with you Steve.
