New Railway Modellers Forums

I would like some guidance as to the best way to paint a small 009 locomotive kit that have nearly built.

Should I glue footplate + cab + boiler all together and paint?
Or should I spray paint all items individually, if so what is the best glue to put them all together without the glue showing?

Thanks for any help.

How complex will its paint scheme be? The more complex the livery the more benefit there will be in having separate parts to paint. If it was a larger scale it would even be reasonable to screw the sections together, so that it could be disassembled for painting, but this would be more difficult to arrange in 009. A photo of the components laid out in approx. position might help judge it.

I'd usually favour the painting of the major components before final assembly, but this hangs on how good a fit the components are (don't want to have to fill) and what adhesive is required for the kit material(s).

Thanks both for your quick replies.

It is a Dapol Pug kit modified to suit 009, only 2 parts the footplate which will be black plus cab/boiler/smoke box, cab and boiler dark blue and smoke box black.

Personally I've always assembled my 009/H0e locos and then sprayed with Halfords Grey Primer and then painted on the final colours carefully using a brush. Doing it in parts assumes that the various parts it can be divided into are all actually different colours, otherwise it's not worth the effort. The thing is with a small 009 loco is that you are probably only looking at two or three colours, black, buffer beam red and the main colour and most places they come together there's a natural line on the loco. The biggest issue is lining and I'm lucky that my steam locos don't tend to have any, only the diesels!

RoyP wrote:...It is a Dapol Pug kit modified to suit 009, only 2 parts the footplate which will be black plus cab/boiler/smoke box, cab and boiler dark blue and smoke box black.

I would paint separately on two counts.

So much easier to neatly apply the blue body colour everywhere it needs to go, with a crisp line where the blue cab meets the footplate.

Once painted and given time so it is fully 'gone off', the use of a solvent cement sparingly applied from the inside of the body shell to the footplate joint lines will make a good bond with no risk to paintwork.