Painting railings on a Diesel

Some plastics can be either resilient to paint or too flexible - or both. Try giving the paint a bit more bite with a light thinner or (slightly) plastic etching wash. If it's just the paint having a hard time sticking- this might help. If the railings are too flexible- virtually any paint you put on it will break apart over time. Acrylic being the best hope.

Good Luck- Tom H>

Your best bet is to use Pactra Racing Colors, they're for RC car bodies which are made from a very flexible plastic. Apply with a brush to completely enclose those handrails, when dry the paint will flex with the plastic.

Good luck, Gordon.

Even better are the specialized acrylic paints that RC Car enthusiasts use for painting the clear, flexible acrylic shells for their cars from the _inside_. I've used this paint for painting engineering plastic (Delrin, for example) handrails on N scale locomotives with great success... you _do_ have to make sure the paint goes all around the handrail - a gap in the coverage is a place where the paint can start coming off. Get solid coverage, and the paint will stay for a LONG time.

I concur with Joe.....have had good results with this sort of stuff, as it's made for those soft-bodies car shells subject to crashes, etc.

Another alternative I have had good luck with, painting handrails on N-scale hood units (U25B, GP9, RS11, etc.) is to airbrush the paint on using acrylics such as Accuflex. I did the yellow handrails on a NH U25B about seven years ago, and none of it has flaked off since.

I talked to Badger (Model Flex paint) at the 2004 Springfield show, and they recommended that 1). all handrails, etc., to be painted should be washed with soap and water first and 2). make sure the paint goes all the way around the handrail, etc.

Paul A. Cutler III

Do you gloss or dull coat the model afterwards?

A fellow modeler used Testors Pactra lacquer racing finish paint as described in the July 2002 Model Railroader. However when the model was sprayed with Floquil Crystal Cote prior to decaling the handrail paint began to chip.

Hmmm...funny thing is, I usually dullcoat the body after the decals are applied, but the handrails are painted and applied separately after that. No dullcoat on the handrails, they are just the "bare" paint.

Scalecoat II is also supposed to be very good for plastics...