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PAINTS
Here are the paints I use. I hope the pics help
you spot these colors at your local hobby store. I primarily use
Acrylic paint (cleans up with water). Enamel paint needs to be thinned
with paint thinner while acrylic can be thinned with rubbing alcohol or
water. I prefer the fast clean up and no fumes of acrylic.
Below is a pic of Floquil paints. They are the only
oil based paints I use. I use SP Daylight Orange for the orange Chessie
color. The ATSF Blue is for the dark blue tops of locomotives and
most freight cars. I don't use these that much.
Below is a pic of Polly Scale paints. This stuff
is great. Acrylic paint in all the railroad colors. Here are
the black I use for gondolas etc. The Chessie yellow is very close
to UP Armor Yellow (seen here), so I use this straight out of the bottle
for my Chessie yellow. And the two blues are C&O Enchantment
Blue and B&O Royal Blue. Both are very close to each other.
I have used both straight from the bottle. It gives my cars a slight
difference in color, which is normal for cars that are faded or freshly
painted.
Below is a pic of Testors Gloss and Dull Coats.
Testors come in both of these labels, don't be confused. I apply
the gloss coat to a model before ever putting on decals and then when I
am done with the model I spray it with dullcoat (lusterless). This
gives the model a nice dull look. Shiny models look very "toyish".
Most factory applied paintjobs are too shiny, apply dullcoat right over
those paint jobs.
DECALS
Decals are absolutely necessary
if you are going to build a fleet of Chessie cars. Most manufacturers
only provide one road number maybe two. Even Bowser limits themselves
to just 12. Try making a coal train out of just 12 cars, it just
doesn't work. Plus, some of these decals sheets allow you to make
cars that no manufacturer made, or even change a bad paint job into a good
one.
Below is a pic of several useful
Chessie Microscale Decal sheets. This is the only decal company still
going strong. I would highly recommend sets 87-401 for blue B&O
and C&O diesels, 87-130 for WM speed and circus diesels, and 87-400
for Chessie diesels. For cabooses 87-962 is the best C&O safety
cabin sheet around and 87-790 is great for WM and WM Chessie cabins.
Champ announced in 2001 that the
owner would be retiring and no more new Champ decals would be made.
This makes Champ decals a hot item now. I use their HC-618 shown
below for covered hoppers with great success. The color is dead on.
Below are Herald King decals. These decals have
not been made since about 1999. The great thing about them is they
are sealed in plastic and will last for about 10 years. You can still
find them at train shows and on eBay. The only problem is that the
really good sheets are extremely hard to find. Below is a typical
boxcar sheet, a sheet for the Chessie diesels, and one for Careful Car
Handling cabins.
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