I've given two clinics on using Alclad II Lacquer to represent stainless
steel, one at Oregon, IL at a meeting of the society whose name we
cannot mention on this list, and one a few weeks later for the North
Shore & Western Division of the NMRA. I would ask that if you want to
forward this to another list or use it for another purpose, to please
ask my permission first.
I'll share some of my experiences with using Alclad to represent a
stainless steel finish, both from what I learned before I gave the two
clinics, and some of what I learned from some of the comments during the
clinics. Also feel free to consult Andy Sperandeo's article in the July
2003 Model Railroader, that is where I got a lot of ideas from.
First off I talk about the base coat. I use either Scalecoat or
Scalecoat II Black, depending on whether or not I'm going over metal or
plastic. As long as the basecoat is compatible with a lacquer on top of
it, you can probably use it, experiment on an old Athearn streamlined
passenger car you might find inexpensive because it's missing parts at a
train show. One of the things I did in experimenting with the product
was trying to vary the appearance of the finished product by varying the
color of the basecoat color. I did not see any real effect on the final
color, when I used either a brown or a black basecoat. I feel the
important thing is to use a smooth (preferably gloss) coat of a dark
color. Make sure that your basecoat has had a chance to dry before
continuing to the next step. As Andy points out, any defects in your
basecoat (or the model) are going to show when you put the Alclad on.
Putting the Alclad on is easy with an airbrush, just put on a nice even
coats until you've got everything covered. It is already prethinnned to
go through the airbrush. You want to make sure that it goes on the
surface wet, if done correctly you can see the solvent flash off of the
surface of the model right behind where you are spraying. Let the
Alclad dry, and don't touch the Alclad surface until the next step.
The clear, and most important, protective coating. Most important thing
here is don't use a clear lacquer directly over the Alclad, not unless
you want a surface that looks like the silver painted side panels of a Q
E unit!! The clear lacquer will react with the Alclad and remove most
of the reflectivity of the surface, giving you more of a platinum mist
like color. I used Floquil Crystal Cote, and even tried Testors
Metalizer Sealer, both came out about the same. Floquil's products used
to dry more like a lacquer in years past, but Testors has modified them
to be slower drying with solvents that won't really effect the finish of
the Alclad.
At this point you may look at the model and think that it still has too
much of a "chrome" look to it. Stainless has a definite "brownish" tone
to it. But I remembered from a Prototype Modeler Magazine article back
in the early to mid 1980's by Bob Kosic on modeling Santa Fe F units.
Bob suggested using Testors Silver and add some drops of Black and Brown
to darken the Silver to look more like stainless steel. So what I do at
this point is to take a new bottle of Floquil Crystal Cote, and with an
eyedropper, I would start with 8 drops of Floquil Engine Black and 4
drops of Roof Brown into it and shake the bottle thoroughly and then
airbrush this over the Alclad and the existing coat of Crystal Cote to
tone it down some. By toning or shading this way you can control how
much you darken the Alclad easier than trying to add color to the Alclad
itself. Cabinet makers that spray lacquer finishes do this to tone the
color of the wood all of the time if they want to change the color by a
small amount. You can vary the amount of black and brown added to suit
your tastes. If you want to model the different "shades" of stainless
that you sometimes see in the window panels, mask off an area and use a
slightly different shade of the tinted Crystal Cote.
Now that you have the effect that you're looking for, you can now decal
the car. Seal the decals with either more Crystal Cote or another GLOSS
finish, a flat finish will dull the whole effect. One note on Crystal
Cote, those of you at Oregon will remember the Crystal Cote on the car I
passed around was still a little tacky, it did dry a few days later.
The clinic I did for the NS&W Div. NMRA I passed the same car around,
but I noticed after the clinic that the Crystal Cote again was a little
on the tacky side. I would suggest that if your cars get handled quite
a bit, you may want to use something other than Crystal Cote that may
hold up a little better. At this point, you could use Testors
Glosscote, because of the layers of Crystal Cote over the Alclad, it
will not affect the finish like it would before.
Keep in mind that almost all of the products that I've mentioned involve
the use of potentially harmful and flammable solvents, which I would
recommend only be used with proper ventilation and a respirator designed
for use with those products, so be careful. I hope some of this
encourages you to try out Alclad on your passenger cars yourself. Find
an inexpensive model to try it on first until you get the techniques
down first.
Ed Pavlovic
Copyright 2005 by Ed Pavlovic
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