Painting Preparation
Because of all the parts involved in both of these locomotives I decided that I would paint them one at a time. To begin I completely disassembled the first locomotive and degreased all the parts in lacquer thinner.
To hold all the parts I made a bunch of painting fixtures from some ¼” brass rod. I cut the rod into roughly 5” sections and then turned down one end to 2mm. I used a die to create a short 2mm x 0.4 threaded portion on the end of each rod. The rods make convenient holding fixtures as they can be screwed into any 2mm threaded holes. To hold the boiler I soldered together a fixture from some brass stock. I drilled and tapped four holes in the fixture and then mounted it to boiler using the same screw holes that hold the boiler bottom in place. Here’s a picture of all the fixtures used for this paint job.
Here are a couple pictures showing all the parts ready for painting on their fixtures:
I masked off all the areas that should free of paint with either tape or with micro-mask. These areas included the crosshead guides, and areas where the wheels and axles contact the frame.
Page 9 - Last updated April 25, 2004