Jersey Central FD-42's

This exercise in futility was accomplished when the turnout building got to me. I took another shot at the tangerine and blue Jersey Central units. Although I don't have the decal thingie perfected yet, I was able to get closer to the goal. I only have the proper ink in white at present...

Pennsy HO Scale

N Scale Jersey Central

Now I have to figure out how to make orange and blue to match the diesels. Which brings me to our current adventure, masking and painting the CNJ F units. The A unit shown here is not one of them. This is a broken shell that hurtled a scale 600 feet to the hard concrete below...

Concrete and Models Don't Play Well Together

The real one is in the mail and headed this way. In the meantime I practiced on the wreck. I have two sets to paint in this color combination including an A-B set of Baldwin "babyfaces". I want to get it right.

When painting two tones like this I start with the lighter color first. Really can't be done the other way. To many coats are required to cover a dark paint with a lighter shade. I used Testors Gloss Tangerrine for this attempt. It's meant for automobile models, but this is a GM locomotive after all. Close enough. Actually the color seems very close to the real CNJ paint. It even has that ambiguous "Is it orange or yellow?" thing going just like in the photos of the actual units...

Testors Gloss Tangerine

After the first color dries, about a day, the model gets masked so the second color can be applied. On the F unit I ran the tape (Tamiya) over the side intake grilles. The tape comes down to the top of the upper riveted panel. I run it right around the cab and across the winshield opening. The front of the roof is masked so that the orange follows the angle of the windshields. After both sides and the roof are masked I start masking the nose. On these units the orange stopped at the anticlimber...

Nose Mask

The orange extended a short way to either side of the anticlimber but still on the front. The color curves up toward the cab sides. These curved portions of the painting are not as hard as  they look (I know, everybody says that). There are a number of ways of masking the curve. For this project I chose the simplest. I use straight sections of tape and mimic the curve by creating a multi sided polygon instead of an actual curve. At this scale it's very easy to suggest a curved line...

"Straight" Curve

Fortunately, the real CNJ units may have been masked in a similar fashion. If you look closely you see that some of the curve is not actually curved. Gives me a fudge factor...

"Restored" CNJ F-3

The unit pictured is actually a restoration and not necessarily an actual CNJ locomotive but you get the idea.

After all the tape is applied I use my fingernail to "burnish" the edges where the colors meet. I want to seal the mask as best as I can. To ensure the lines will be crisp without paint bleed I spray the masked model with a clear overcoat. This should seal the edges of the tape and keep the paint where it belongs. A very light coat is all that's needed. I you get too happy with the airbrush you end up with this....

Thick Coat Of Clear

Although the paint won't be seen when it dries it will hide the detail of the model. Not a good thing as it will show up in the next color, only more so...

Too Much Paint

If it ends up like this the best thing is to strip the shell of all paint and start over, something I'm not gonna do on this broken shell. After the clear coat dries, I spray on the darker color. Make sure you get get all the sreas that are supposed to be blue. I missed the lower skirt on one side and had to shoot a layer of blue there.

After the blue dried I peeled off all the tape...

CNJ #57

The lighter color looks a lot better this time around, not the ORANGE of previous attempts...

Previously On Milepost 15...

The blue I used on the latest attempt is Model Master royal blue. It's probably too light. I'll probably use the Blue Angel blue I used on the first go'round. I personally don't like the way the curve came out. I did better on the earlier paint job.

If I can make those matching decals I should be all set.

Regards,

Frank Musick

Building a dream layout on a nightmare budget

The Average Eastern Railroad