Painting steam locomotive running gear

MikeM's picture

With the demise of Floquil and Polyscale (not that that necessarily has much to do with this) I'm wondering what brands/colors of paint folks use to detail the side rods, eccentrics, rockers, etc. of their steam locomotives.

If you have steam engines on your layout for other applications (pumps, donkey engines/loaders, etc.) do you paint/weather those any differently than locomotives?

When considering the piston rods, do you try to make them look polished?  If so, how?

gogebic's picture

Running Gear

I use a material called NeoLube which is available through Micro Mart. Neo Lube is a suspension of finely powdered graphite in alcohol. When dry, it closely resembles the oily bare metal of running gear even more so than paint.

Hans

Hans

Gogebic Iron Range

YouTube: Gogebic Rails

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/12321

Ironhand_13's picture

Just painted some

This is floquil enigine black with maybe 30% grimy black and a bare hint of testor's semi gloss- too lazy to thouroughly clean the cup on the the airbrush..it has a nice shine, although this is a little too dark to see, but trust me, I like it for a 'greased' appearance.

and then on my second loco, doing the same thing, I applied weathering powders after a 'slash' of the 'local dirt' through the airbrush and all the shine is gone (see below)

 I was sorely tempted to try the Neo-Lube but was unable to find it locally and didn't want to wait for the delivery, so stuck with what I knew.  Maybe I should have added a 'hint of shine' to the dirt???

 

I wish somehow, someway, there was a weathering powder that could 'shine'...is it possible???

-Steve in Iowa City

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