Cleaning up, ready for painting

April 10th is the National Garden Railway Show and 16mm association AGM at Stoneleigh Warwickshire.  As part of this event the planners are hoping for 101 Hunslets to be on show alongside the star attraction – the newly restored Edward Sholto, previously of Penrhyn Quarries and latterly stored in the USA.

My Rough Pup is registered to attend and although it could do so in current condition, it would be far nicer to have it there painted.

Thus prep work started last night with the boiler/smokebox lifted off, the already painted firebox removed and the motor, gears and wheels lifted out. 

Now its time to clean her up.  My weapons of choice are shown above:

- Fibreglass brushes of 2,4,8 and 10mm for cleaning up, giving the brass a key for the paint to adhere to and general surface improvement (removing solder etc)

- A chisel scapel and screwdriver to remove blobs of solder

- A brass brush, cosmetics brush, paintbrush, toothbrush and foam brush for getting into corners and washing cleaning stuff around.

- Acid cleaners – shiny sinks (cream) and viakal to really buff up the brass plus acetone (cheap nail varnish remover) to use sparingly oN really grubby bits.

- Alkaline cleaner VIM to remove flux deposits.

- I will also use the airbrush to blow away any water that gets under laminations etc and also get rid of those pesky fibreglass bristles.

The plan is as follows:

- Clean up with fibreglass brushes etc

- buff up brass with acid cleaner

- neutralise with alkaline cleaner

- wash thoroughly with water and let dry overnight

- use airbrush to finalise drying.

- mask off slidebars and connecting rods

- prime with halfords car primer (red oxide as paint on top of it could later be rubbed down to reveal this as rust).

- airbrush chassis black.

- airbrush sides and back red.

- mask off brass details on boiler/tank and prime brass boiler grey, paint resin directly red (no primer required).

- Line out, add nameplates

- Weather using airbrush and t-cut.

and all before April 10th.

Oh and at some point finish the electrical connection and couplings to the running wagon, install battery/ESC and Rx and cover with tarpaulin!