About my week with the stripper...
Yes, I spent a week with a stripper.
The stripper took almost everything off...a little coaxing and everything, and I mean EVERYTHING came off. Hubba hubba. Stripping is often seen as a dirty business, and it is. You can't touch the stripper, and the stripper shouldn't touch you, as you may end up with some kind of skin condition. I do recommend gloves, as your hands can get quite dirty.
But before you think I'm up to no good, the stripper I'm talking about is Isopropyl Alcohol. 99%. Yes, the hard stuff. 70% will make something shiny, but it won't do anything useful.
This week I started stripping paint from some older models that I wanted to repaint. In the past, I've either found undecorated models (which are becoming a rarity) or I used PineSol. PineSol can be used as a paint stripper, but it does have some side-effects.
1. It has a smell that will never, ever go away. Anything you strip will smell like PineSol forever.
2. It does a lot of damage to your skin and gloves don't help much.
3. It doesn't take all the paint away. It does a decent job, but not the best.
4. If you use it on certain plastics (like Walthers kits), you'll have a banana instead of a train car.
This was the first time using Isopropyl Alcohol to strip models down, and I have to say I'm satisfied with it. Only one model didn't strip, and it was painted a long time ago with automotive primer. I don't think it will strip in anything. I did have to use a toothbrush on some models in order to get the paint off, but that's not a huge problem.
Easy to strip: Athearn 53' Navieras container. Plopped it into the alcohol, and the paint came almost clean off after a few hours. Nice and easy. My Walthers Amtrak F40PH is in the stripper now waiting to become a VIA Rail unit, and the paint is just peeling off like nothing.
Hard to strip: Life Like Canada 50' Boise Cascade newsprint car, and Athearn 53' APL container. I think both of these were harder to strip because the paint was applied in layered sections. It came off, but it took a week of scrubbing and redunking. Not that that's a problem, as both stripped clean and there's no damage.
Strange to strip: Concor containers and Athearn AC4400CW shells. I don't know what Concor used as their base white coat on some containers, but it was a strange one to watch. The roadname came off almost as soon as it touched the alcohol. Great. But the base coat needed to be scrubbed vigourously in order to come off. The Athearn locomotive shell...one side had the paint come off, but the KCS lettering stayed. The other side, the KCS lettering disapppeared and the paint stayed. The roof...the paint became a congealed mess...very gross. I can't figure out why that happened.
Airbrushing
I also spent this afternoon with the airbrush. After picking up some paints, I decided to finally give the airbrush a test run. It's been sitting around for years now, and now that I have a compressor and a moisture trap, I figured it was time to use it. For those who don't airbrush yet, one word of advice...get a silent compressor. Mine is loud and comes on frequently while painting. I love the compressor, as it does a great job, but it is very loud.
Anyway, to the job at hand. Using Golden acrylics from the tube mixed 1:1 with Windex, I tried to spray a container. Note the word tried...the airbrush clogged and sputtered and I ended up having to clean out the airbrush. And to make matters worse, the paint didn't even stick to the model. So, that was a waste of time. I'm not blaming the paint...I think I should have done a better job with the mixing ratio. Back into the stripper for them...
It was not a total loss of an afternoon, though. I grabbed a boxcar shell, and a bottle of Italeri acrylic paint. I mixed it 1:1 with Italeri thinner and added a shot of Windex to the mix. And then I sprayed.
What an amazing paint. It did a great job in one coat, and I might just need to spray again to cover a few little spots. But when it came to cleaning up, I fired some Windex through the brush and it cleaned it out. No having to take the airbrush apart to clean the insides like I did with the other acrylic. That right there is a major selling point for me. Italeri has some colours that are close enough for model railroad colours, so I am glad I got all the bottles I did while they were on sale.
Unfortunately, my supply of low priced Italeri paints has dried up, as Wheels and Wings Hobbies in Toronto cleared them out. I'm not into most of the products they were selling, as they are not in the model train business, but they were an awesome store and I will go back for supplies. I highly recommend their store for anyone who does airplane, automobile, and military modelling. Great stuff and a lot of great prices.
But, if you're looking for similar paints, look for the Vallejo and Railflyer lines, as they both have excellent paint that sprays beautifully and cleans up just like the Italeri. They're also not overly expensive, and despite the small size of the bottle you do get a lot of paint. You just have to know to use thinner before spraying.
Photos when the painting and decaling are done. Now I have to find a bottle of Future floor wax...
The stripper took almost everything off...a little coaxing and everything, and I mean EVERYTHING came off. Hubba hubba. Stripping is often seen as a dirty business, and it is. You can't touch the stripper, and the stripper shouldn't touch you, as you may end up with some kind of skin condition. I do recommend gloves, as your hands can get quite dirty.
But before you think I'm up to no good, the stripper I'm talking about is Isopropyl Alcohol. 99%. Yes, the hard stuff. 70% will make something shiny, but it won't do anything useful.
This week I started stripping paint from some older models that I wanted to repaint. In the past, I've either found undecorated models (which are becoming a rarity) or I used PineSol. PineSol can be used as a paint stripper, but it does have some side-effects.
1. It has a smell that will never, ever go away. Anything you strip will smell like PineSol forever.
2. It does a lot of damage to your skin and gloves don't help much.
3. It doesn't take all the paint away. It does a decent job, but not the best.
4. If you use it on certain plastics (like Walthers kits), you'll have a banana instead of a train car.
This was the first time using Isopropyl Alcohol to strip models down, and I have to say I'm satisfied with it. Only one model didn't strip, and it was painted a long time ago with automotive primer. I don't think it will strip in anything. I did have to use a toothbrush on some models in order to get the paint off, but that's not a huge problem.
Easy to strip: Athearn 53' Navieras container. Plopped it into the alcohol, and the paint came almost clean off after a few hours. Nice and easy. My Walthers Amtrak F40PH is in the stripper now waiting to become a VIA Rail unit, and the paint is just peeling off like nothing.
Hard to strip: Life Like Canada 50' Boise Cascade newsprint car, and Athearn 53' APL container. I think both of these were harder to strip because the paint was applied in layered sections. It came off, but it took a week of scrubbing and redunking. Not that that's a problem, as both stripped clean and there's no damage.
Strange to strip: Concor containers and Athearn AC4400CW shells. I don't know what Concor used as their base white coat on some containers, but it was a strange one to watch. The roadname came off almost as soon as it touched the alcohol. Great. But the base coat needed to be scrubbed vigourously in order to come off. The Athearn locomotive shell...one side had the paint come off, but the KCS lettering stayed. The other side, the KCS lettering disapppeared and the paint stayed. The roof...the paint became a congealed mess...very gross. I can't figure out why that happened.
Airbrushing
I also spent this afternoon with the airbrush. After picking up some paints, I decided to finally give the airbrush a test run. It's been sitting around for years now, and now that I have a compressor and a moisture trap, I figured it was time to use it. For those who don't airbrush yet, one word of advice...get a silent compressor. Mine is loud and comes on frequently while painting. I love the compressor, as it does a great job, but it is very loud.
Anyway, to the job at hand. Using Golden acrylics from the tube mixed 1:1 with Windex, I tried to spray a container. Note the word tried...the airbrush clogged and sputtered and I ended up having to clean out the airbrush. And to make matters worse, the paint didn't even stick to the model. So, that was a waste of time. I'm not blaming the paint...I think I should have done a better job with the mixing ratio. Back into the stripper for them...
It was not a total loss of an afternoon, though. I grabbed a boxcar shell, and a bottle of Italeri acrylic paint. I mixed it 1:1 with Italeri thinner and added a shot of Windex to the mix. And then I sprayed.
What an amazing paint. It did a great job in one coat, and I might just need to spray again to cover a few little spots. But when it came to cleaning up, I fired some Windex through the brush and it cleaned it out. No having to take the airbrush apart to clean the insides like I did with the other acrylic. That right there is a major selling point for me. Italeri has some colours that are close enough for model railroad colours, so I am glad I got all the bottles I did while they were on sale.
Unfortunately, my supply of low priced Italeri paints has dried up, as Wheels and Wings Hobbies in Toronto cleared them out. I'm not into most of the products they were selling, as they are not in the model train business, but they were an awesome store and I will go back for supplies. I highly recommend their store for anyone who does airplane, automobile, and military modelling. Great stuff and a lot of great prices.
But, if you're looking for similar paints, look for the Vallejo and Railflyer lines, as they both have excellent paint that sprays beautifully and cleans up just like the Italeri. They're also not overly expensive, and despite the small size of the bottle you do get a lot of paint. You just have to know to use thinner before spraying.
Photos when the painting and decaling are done. Now I have to find a bottle of Future floor wax...
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