Rushby's Resins Deutz - part 4 basic paintwork done.

For this project I decided that it was time to get the airbrush out rather than rely on rattlecans as I did on my battery electric. Whilst the airbrush is a faff to clean, and unless the weathers agreeable needs to be used somewhere indoors with my portable spray booth, its still the best way to get a smooth finish, even in my hands.

I wanted a typical 'feldbahn' paint scheme, and settled on red frames and a green body.

Spraying the frames red proved troublesome. At fist I tried red oxide car primer, with Ford Sunburst Red from a rattlecan as the top coat. This proved less than satisfactory, the red being too runny and too dark due to the red oxide primer. So, I experimented with an old loco body kept for such purposes, first spraying it with white primer then the Ford red. I still wasn't happy so I decided on another approach. This is when I dug out my trusty Badger 150. The frames were stripped of paint using isopropyl alcohol and cotton buds, surprisingly effective, and given a squirt of white auto primer. When this was dry I applied the topcoat, and for that I used Tamiya Flat Red, sprayed in the dining room using my spray booth on the table. I've always found that Tamiya's paint is better applied with an airbrush, it never seems to flow as well just using a brush by hand.

I also used Tamiya for the footplate top. I'm never able to get a decent finish with a brush on large flat areas using black paint, of any brand, so I masked off the sides and bufferbeams and airbrushed the footplate top with NATO Black, which is a nice subtle grey-ish black.

For the body and fuel tank I used Games Workshop's Warboss Green, thinned with de-ionised water and sprayed outside on a nice sunny morning. I've always got on well with GWs paints, either by brush or airbrush, I find them to be good quality paints, and they have amusing names! The cab interior is Revel Stone Grey, brush painted.

Here it is sitting on its Kato chassis, with the interior in place;

All airbrushing done at 20psi. Tamiya paint thinned with Tamiya thinners.

The red frames are a bit overpowering, even with the footplate top sprayed black, so the next step will be to paint the axleboxes and buffer blocks in black, and possibly the footplate and bufferbeam edges as well.

Paul.