Painting, Masking, Painting

Since the weather has turned dry and warm,  I decided to paint the principal components of the engine.   After much mental anguish,  this is the scheme.

Sole plate is black.  Cylinder, steam chest, flywheel, all bearing block and stanchions to be green.   Spray painting is the order of the day,  which means lots of careful masking out.   Painstaking attention to the masking out is key to a good spray job.

I used Polykote grey primer,  which is a cellulose based paint and that went on a real treat.   For the sole plate,  I used Polykote gloss black and for the “green” bits  a can of Halfords Vauxhall Pine Green.   They had quite a few different flat gloss colours (ie not Pearlescent or Metallic) that were  close to “Stuart Green”.   This paint is acryllic and doesn’t go on as well but dries very quickly in the warm weather.  It will also stand wet and dry to get rid of any excrescences.

The sole plate had some vertical scores which remained very evident in primer,   so I used some cellulose stopper to fill them and one or two other dinks.   Cellulose stopper is now known as “fine surface filler” and it’s probably not a good idea to use it on the acryllic finish.

The marks can be seen in this video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kzk8EwN7-34

In close up,  you can see I’ve rubbed down the raw casting to get a smooth surface,  but the marks are quite deep.

It’s actually quite difficult to decide what to paint and what not.   Got quite a lot done and the flywheel looks pretty smart even though it needs tidying up.   I’m not going to touch it now for a week to ensure the paint is hard enough to stand being worked.

I’ve added both “rubbing compound” and T-Cut to the paint box so I’ve a range of materials to use to get to a good polished finish.

When I started building the engine,  I really didn’t realise how much woodworking and painting is needed to finish.  The paint job and the woodwork has to be to a high standard or else all the design and manufacture effort that’s gone in to produce the engine will be undermined.

One thing to thing about is the thickness of the final paint job in relation to the scale of the engine – it will interfere with the fit of some components on assembly if care is not taken.  (Attention to masking out again).

Definitely going to build an IC engine next ( Whittle V8? ) !!!  No woodwork or painting !