Ed;
Thanks for the very thorough explanation. I regret that I missed your
presentation in Oregon, but it looks like you've certainly pointed out
most of the important "gotchas".
Kind regards, Rob Adams
Ed Pavlovic wrote:
>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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>Yahoo! Groups Links
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