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RE: (erielack) EL model paint - and a poll.

Checking back in after a three day weekend camping . . . with a prototype steam "adventure" to talk
about some other time.

I'm amused with myself not even thinking that I was talking about baking paint on brass, not on
plastic, and that might not be the presupposed situation . . . .  Sure, 200d in an oven for a couple
hours surely would destroy your plastic model.

But back to what I was saying, I use Scalecoat 1 on brass.  I generally prime with EL gray, and then
paint whatever color is required over that.  Baking every coat makes it into an extremely hard coat
of paint which will not scratch, and will not chip.  It's gloss so decaling over it is a piece of
cake, no glosscoat to get a smooth surface, decal, and then flatcoat.  Just decal, and then flat
overcoat.

The only difficulty I've ever encountered was painting some FA1s, and that was when I applied the
Accucal "wings" over the nose, suddenly the entire paint coat was loose, and moving around in a
sheet (which is sort of what I did at the time) as I moved the wings into final position.  That
paint job was ditched, stripped, and repainted.  From that experience I have deduced that the decal
set for Accucals and Scalecoat 1 don't really like each other.  The safe way is to overcoat the
Scalecoat with a clear coat (yes, I know, I've just undone what I see as an advantage) to separate
the Accucal solvent from the Scalecoat.  But I've never had any trouble with any other decal setting
solution.

Fumes.  Yeah, Scalecoat 1 does have them.  So does normal Floquil (as contrasted to Polly Scale).  I
have a spray booth I built that vents out the basement window.  And yeah, I painted my hands and
washed off with Floquil thinner.  I'm still here, and basically functional (no cracks here, please!)
so I guess I survived that stupidity.  But don't think that the acrylics are fault-free either.
They create a dust which can coat your lungs just as much as anything else.  So, the spray booth or
painting outdoors is really applicable to either kind of paint.

I do use Floquil for weathering, mostly, and for painting wood models and some other things.  I've
used PS for painting details when I'm upstairs in my study when the "aroma" of solvent-based paint
will bring out the complaints (in particular humid summer nights when the air is still).

I share Paul Tup's antipathy for Accupaint.  I have never been able to make it work for me.  Paul is
correct, it's an ink, modified to be sprayable and to make a film.  And the thinner includes ink,
but that's not all.  It's probably a dead paint now anyway, given the, um, problems of the owner, so
I guess it doesn't matter anyway.

 I have pestered Ron Sebastian from Des Plaines Hobbies, who has had a number of custom colors made
for other roads, to have, especially, the two greens for the ERIE passenger scheme done in some
other paint.  He's "off" Scalecoat (of either variety) now, having rejected several batches they
mixed for him for other roads, so his remark was "pick a paint."  So, guys, if you want custom
colors mixed, and they're not going to be in Scalecoat 1 or 2, or in Accupaint, what would you
prefer?  And what colors do we want, besides my two greens?

The colors I see we can use modeling ERIE, DL&W or EL, are:
Dark green
Gray-green
Maroon (is DL&W maroon different than EL maroon?)
Gray
Yellow
Dulux Gold?

SGL


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