Tools, tips and tricks

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Cutting stick on lead weights

Fri, 2020-06-12 09:55 — Visitor

So I'm going to try the lead stick on wheel balancing weights for my HO bulkhead flat cars. They're the common 1/4 oz ones and I need to cut about a 1/4 of the long side off so they fit under the frame. I have a hand full of cars to do and each car needs as many as I can fit under there. Anyone have a good way to cut them? AND yes I know they are lead and I don't mind working with lead.

BTW, I went the stick on weight route because I was having a hard time finding true lead shot.

Thanks

Steve

27 comments

Silicon paint?

Fri, 2020-06-12 05:56 — pennsylvania1954

In the June 2020 What's Neat, John Regier does a very thorough upgrade of an Athearn GP60. At least a couple of times he uses what he calls "silicon paint." It looks like something I can use. I have searched for it in all the usual places including on this forum. What is it? Where can I buy it?

Steve Hoxie

Pensacola FL

5 comments

Unloading gondolas with excavator

Mon, 2020-06-08 04:15 — engineer

Tools, tips and tricks

Perhaps you already know this technique for unloading gondolas:

Soft paint problem

Sat, 2020-06-06 09:31 — RMeyer

I have done a lot of freight car painting. Most of the time the paint dries hard and I have no problem with it. However, sometimes the paint does not seem to set up hard. I'm currently having a problem with a light yellow paint that was spray painted 3-4 days ago and it seems to easily be scratched. I have two other projects that are the same models, same preparation, same paint brand (one gray and one yellow), same airbrush application but these have dried hard. FYI, the gray paint was sprayed yesterday and it is fine.

Laser printer with white toner ??

Sat, 2020-06-06 09:22 — RMeyer

I make a lot of custom decals for covered hopper cars and I need access to white lettering. I have used several custom decal vendors but I have found that they are very expensive and difficult to work with.

I see that Micromark is selling a HP laser printer that can take a white toner cartridge. Has anyone used one of these? How opaque is the white toner?

Can you put a white layer down with yellow on top of it in order to make the yellow more opaque?

If you are making an item with white and another color, which is printed first?