Through the process of painting (Left to Right). Nose of locomotive masked and shown with black overspray, front of locomotive showing some bleed through of the black paint, and rear of locomotive after air brushing.
Purdue Locomotive Project
Now that the design phase of the locomotive was completed, it was time to get down to work. First, PUR 9904 was cleaned in a bath of dish soap and warm water to get the oils and dirt off of the locomotive. After washing and air drying the locomotive it was time to begin painting. Most of the time, a primer coat of light grey paint is sprayed onto the locomotive. However, I bypassed this step since the locomotive had already been painted before. I would later find out it would have been a good idea to primer coat the locomotive. The next step to painting was to mask off the areas that would be painted gold so I could air brush on the black paint. The following photographs will show the progress of applying the black paint.
Through the process of painting (Left to Right). Nose of locomotive masked
and shown with black overspray, front of locomotive showing some bleed through
of the black paint, and rear of locomotive after air brushing.
Side view of the locomotive while still masked after applying the black
paint.
Side view of the locomotive after masking was removed. Notice some bleeding
of paint once again.
The painting of the black paint on the locomotive took place while I was home for a break from school back in the early months of 2004. Since I had to return back to school, I took a hiatus from working on the locomotive. The next task after returning back from school was to find the right shade of gold paint. I opted to go with Bright Gold from Floquil to use on the locomotive. Due to some oversight I forgot to buy some essential material to allow me to air brush the gold on. After acquiring the material, the tedious task of masking the locomotive took place again to cover enough of the black areas to prevent gold paint from being applied where it did not belong. The following pictures show the progress of applying the gold paint and the current state of PUR 9904.
Left: Front of the locomotive while masked after getting air brushed
gold. Right: Read of locomotive unmasked after gold applied.
Side view of locomotive while masked after gold paint was airbrushed on.
Another shot showing the front and side of the locomotive after gold paint
was air brushed.
As you can see after looking at these pictures, there are areas that missed getting painted and areas where there is some gold overspray onto the black areas. The plan right now is to carefully re-mask the gold areas and touch up the black areas with the air brush. Any areas that will be tough to fix with the air brush will be carefully touched up with a brush. After touch up painting has been completed, then the process of adding the lettering will take place. Keep checking back for updates on PUR 9904.
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