Best Of New Brass EP-2 assembly & Mod clinic

[mmagliaro]

Ron,
This is the most beautiful steam loco project I've ever seen.   
(I think you get my meaning!)

[Cajonpassfan]

Those sideframes are stunning! The whole project is
Otto K.

[u18b]

Thanks guys.

Your encouragement means a lot to me.

I forgot to mention that I left a plug in the vestibule socket while sand blasting.



The reason I did this is because I did not want particles from air erasing to clog the socket.
When I am finished painting, I'll pull the plugs.

[u18b]

Today is the next step toward painting.

The brass parts have all been "sand blasted" with an air eraser.
This process leaves a fine dust that must be cleaned off.
The parts must also be pristine free of oil.

So I'm using two solutions.
Lacquer thinner is the first wash to get the dust off.
Acetone is to get the oils off.



As you can see, I'm outside in an open garage with LOTS of cross ventilation from the afternoon breeze.
These chemicals are dangerous (if you didn't know that).
You don't want to breathe fumes in a closed area.
Also, they are flammable (particularly acetone)... so don't be an idiot and smoke around these fluids.
They can be bought at Walmart or Lowe’s or most any hardware and/or paint store.
They are usually in the paint section.
For the younger folks on this board, there might be an age restriction on purchasing these.

OK. I'm ready.
All my brass parts are on one paper plate (now contaminated with aluminium oxide dust).
I also have three more clean plates waiting.
You also see tools.
Clean toothbrush, hemostats and good tweezers for holding parts.
And my hands are clean.



First step it to just swirl the parts in the lacquer thinner.
This is to wash most of the oxide dust off.






All items have been "rinsed" and are sitting on a clean plate.


By the way, there are zero platic parts on this brass loco (for example, I removed the plastic Atlas horns).
If you were to do this with plastic parts, you would be in for an ugly and gooey surprise.
This is only for metal.

[u18b]

Now, I take each part are scrub it with acetone.


Acetone is an amazing substance. (I did warn you it was flammable, right???)

Acetone is like alcohol in that it can dissolve oils and water-- both.
Lacquer thinner cannot dissolve water.
The difference is that alcohol dries a LOT slower than acetone- so I prefer acetone.
We used acetone in my Chemistry labs when we needed to run a process that could have no water present at all.
BTW- this is a main ingredient in stuff like STP gas treatment.  The acetone dissolves any water droplets in your gas tank and then they can be burned away.)




You may say.... wait, you're holding it with your oily hands!  Doesn't that defeat the purpose?

No.  Because....
1.  The acetone actually dissolves the oils off my hands.
2.  Right now, I'm just scrubbing.  I'm not finished.
3.  In fact, you can see that the parts I've already scrubbed are still soaking in the rest of the acetone so any residual oil is being dissolved.
(and still not done)

When I can, I hold onto a non-important part.
Here, I'm holding the motor mount which I care not what it looks like.



Ahhh. Now we get to the part you were waiting for.
I now take each soaking part that had formerly been handled and wash it again by carefully holding it with tweezers.



All parts that have gone through the acetone step now go on another clean plate.



OK.  Everything has been washed and scrubbed.
But we are not done.

[u18b]

Yikes!
Look at all the crud that came off in the acetone bath.
Most of this is black paint from the crevices of the sideframes.



Now, I could leave the parts alone to dry.
But I'd rather not.
So I use and airbrush to blow all over and in all crevices to get all the acetone off.
By the way, I airbrush with Nitrogen, so there is no water vapor to condense.
Also, as you can see, once out of the acetone, my hands will never touch bare brass again.



When each part has been dried, it is moved to the last clean plate.
It's important to work systematically and not confuse stuff.



And the parts are covered to keep dust off them.

[garethashenden]

Generally speaking gloves should be worn with acetone. As you say it dissolves water, not something you want to have happen to your hands...

[Chris333]

Brass, it's what's for dinner. 

[u18b]

Ready to prime the metal.

An old modeler experienced in painting brass said he preferred zinc chromate primer (made by Floquil---- since Floquil is no more, I'm not sure what I'll use next when I can't find it anymore).
He said it actually chemically reacts with the metal and bonds with it.



Floquil says to dilute 75% paint to 25% thinner. 
I never find that's enough.  It is too thick and clogs the airbrush after a while.
I use closer to 50/50.
And I thin these petroleum paints with plain old lacquer thinner.
So modelers say not to do this, but I have never had bad results.
Also, you can see I use a paint screen to keep everything clean.



A part is painted and now placed on another clean plate.



Some parts do not have an unimportant surface that you can set the part down on.
In those cases, I let the part dry a while before setting it loose from the hemostats and onto the plate.



Once all the parts have been painted, it is no big deal to go back with another squirt on area missing paint where the hemostats or tweezers were.



Done!
Now comes the REALLY hard part.....   

I have to do nothing and leave it alone.
An experienced modeler says give it a week for the paint to thoroughly cure.
Some people use an oven at a low setting.
But I'm just going to wait.



Well, I'll also cover the parts mostly to keep floating dust in my house from settling on the parts.



Disclaimer:  My apologies to all the trees that gave their lives for this modeling project.   

[peteski]

I had to smile reading the last few posts.

Acetone is the main ingredient in nail polish remover.  I never seen a women wearing gloves while removing nail polish from her nails. How could she if the glove was covering her fingers?     But on a serious note, it is always a good idea to wear gloves when working with chemicals. Unfortunately, acetone swells and permeates most of the generally available gloves.

Ron, I suspect that you have lacquer thinner and mineral spirits mixed up. Mineral spirits can also be used as degreaser (so says the label), but as a petroleum distillate, it doesn't mix with water (so it will not dissolve water-soluble crud).

Lacquer thinners have many different formulas (depending on the brand), but they are all designed as a generic solvent/thinner for lacquers.  Here is a list of ingredients of one of the ones I have: methyl alcohol, toluene, acetone, ethyl acetate, ethylene glycol monnobutyl ether and petroleum distillates.

As you can see, the mixture of chemicals contains your favorite degreaser. Lacquer thinner is an excellent degreaser and since it contains acetone, there is no need for a 2nd bath in acetone alone.

IMO, best way do deal with water-soluble crud is to give the item a wash in water and dish-washing detergent. Then, when dried quickly (in a food dehydrator), give it the degreasing bath in lacquer thinner.

At least this makes most sense to me.  I use many different chemicals in my hobbies and I always try to educate myself to understand how to use them.

[Chris333]

The stuff we use at work to wash our hands says to use gloves while handleing 

[u18b]

I'd appreciate input from forum folks on painting.

As I finally get ready to do some real painting.... I'm looking over some conflicting information.

Here is the top of the line EP-2 made (so far as I can see).  It is an Iron Horse Models Bipolar in brass.  These things tend to sell toward $2,000 and that is not even with DCC.

Notice that the walkway is black.... when I have already established that is should be red (maroon that looks more like "berry" to me).

But also, note where the separation between the orange and the red is (and that red looks awful to me).
Here is a hi-rez link to the HO scale model.
http://www.brasstrains.com/images/products/033373/DSC04097.jpg

The separation is UNDER the side handrail.  So the side rails are thus ORANGE.

Because the handrails would be tricky to mask, it would appear to me obvious that the whole model was painted red first.  Then it was masked over the red, and then the orange was applied.

But on the prototype, this shot appears to have red handrails.
Notice at the left Cab, that the separation is just under that railing at the door to the cab.



This this model painted by Tony Hines is far superior.
Red rails.



In this shot, the grab iron at the separation is orange.
They also have a black separation line decal between the orange and red.
http://www.brasstrains.com/images/products/033373/DSC04099.jpg

Now look at almost the same angle.



This is about the closest shot I can find of this loco.
And the rails almost look black to me.
I know it is a low angle, and maybe it is a shadow.
But they look like the rails are RIGHT ON the separation.
The door DOES appear to have a black separation line and the rails look to be the same color possibly (which would make sense.).


Here is another view.
I actually bought this slide.


Once again, the rails look like they COULD be black.  But it is very hard to tell.

There are not a lot of color photos I have found of this 1948/49 loco.

[Scottl]

I would paint orange first, mask, then the gray cab, and then finally mask to paint red.  I would not want to take time to mask off the red to paint orange and the orange is easier to cover with a darker colour.

Beautiful work on this unit.

[u18b]

I find it pretty hard to tell anything from a B&W photo.

[spookshow]

Tough questions for sure, Ronnie. Fortunately, you have a number of very good options -









Cheers,
-Mark