Rushby's Resins Deutz - part 2 getting ready for paint

This has been laid aside for a while, but its high time that I finished it off, which means doing my least favourite job, painting.

I tend to use aerosol primer, usually Hycote acrylic from the local motor factors. It sprays well, dries quickly and is a lot less work than setting up my airbrush. Primer coats are important, not only as a base for the top finish coat but also for showing up imperfections in the finish. So, after the first light coat I could see the areas that need attention, and being resin there were a few tiny holes and blemishes that needed filling, with Squadron Green Putty, then smoothing off with a curved scalpel blade and rubbing sticks. The worst affected area was the footplate top, but that is mentioned in the instructions anyway. There were very few tiny holes, so not much work has been needed.

The main body is in red oxide, and the frames grey at the moment;

My intended colour scheme will be 'bufferbeam' red frames and a darker red body, with the springs picked out in black. So the frames will be receiving a coat of red oxide next.

Note that there's a big hole in the front of the bonnet, I've cut part of the radiator grill panel away as I have a replacement etch to fit;

This is a Narrow Planet item, they made a small number of etched radiator grills for this kit and luckily I managed to get hold of the last one. This will be fitted after painting, and I shall probably just chemically blacken it.

I've also added some lead weight, in the form of aquarium plant weight, to the inside of the bonnet and around the inside of the frames;

Body frames and chassis together weigh a whopping 48 grams.

One thing that I will be changing is the wheels. I turned up a new set of larger (7mm) diameter wheels, but I shall revert back to the original Kato ones. With the new wheels fitted the coupling height is too high, and as the wheels are more noticable under the frames it helps to show up that the Kato wheelbase is different to the axlebox positions on the resin frames, as the axleboxes on the frames are set closer together which suits the loco better.

The next job will be adding another layer of primer, checking the finish yet again, ready to apply the top coat.

Paul.