There’s been some progress on my current loco build.
The body was sprayed with Expo matt black acrylic primer. It’s the first time I’ve used this product and it gives a very matt finish – it almost sucks up the light…
The plan is to paint the loco in a similar sytle to St Egwin.
I painted the black components with a slightly less matt black, then masked off the areas that will be the black lining (see the photo at the beginning of this blog).
Next I painted the green areas with Revell Emerald Green, a gloss acrylic.
It’s a lovely colour, but even after three coats it’s not covering the primer.
What am I doing wrong? Is it just a question of being patient and applying more coats, should I sand the gloss paint between coats, or can I do something else to get better coverage…?
All advice welcome.
Steve's Narrow Gauge Adventure 
Hello Steve, I am no expert on paints but from experience black as an undercoat for a colour such as green is not going to work. The green paint has a certain level of translucence in gloss form that will show what is under it to some extent unless you tar brush it on which you clearly won’t want to. I would suggest you either use a white undercoat over the black that you have already applied or more preferably a matt green as close to the top colour as possible as an undercoat. Matt paint has a far better coverage to it and will give the gloss green a much better chance of being what it should be – a rich gloss green Black undercoat has its place and if you look at military modellers they use it a lot because of its darkness it does give shadows on tanks as it shows through the top coats easily.
Trust this helps?
Woody
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Hi Woody
Thanks for the comment. That makes total sense. It’s always a risk trying something new, and I probably shouldn’t have tried a new primer and a new top coat combination on this loco build… Ugh, there’s quite a bit of remedial work to do here!
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I’d be tempted to start again, do the black, mask, spray with primer (white or grey), then apply the green.
I hate painting….
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Hi Paul,
Yes it looks like I’ll start back at the beginning 😦
Normally I’d say I like painting, but in this case…..
Oh, and the Emerald Green gloss is a lovely colour but it’s gone in the bin !
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