Does anyone here have a recommendation on a good lifelike gold paint for lining ? It will be over an oil base, i dont fancy doing 212ft of gold leaf just on one side let alone two sides and two ends.
Today we had a unexpected visitor, and almost the same colour (if he varnished it)

Mike Pannell
Car 57 Cheyenne

Through my research, I think the Deluxe Gold that the NH used on it's early diesels would work. Looks gold to me when I look at the old Kodachrome photographs.

Automotive striping can be purchased ready to apply from body shop suppliers.

dave

Art supply and craft stores normally have a good supply of oil paints like that. Should be easy to find one to mimic gold leaf there.

Thanks, auto striping wont work it has to go over the siding like paint would, i.e not straight over the gaps in the wood, i will try hobby lobby or similar, just wondered what other folks use on their restorations.

Cheers

Mike Pannell

I have done a lot of that type work on cars at IRM. For an imitation gold I think the proper name is Dulux gold which is a yellow ochre pigmented paint. One Shot makes a good one. In some light conditions it closely resembles gold striping although no metallic in the paint at all.

The gold leaf option is still the best and not more difficult, in reality, that trying to paint on a hobby 'gold' paint. Most of those hobby paints are basically a clear varnish with suspended bronze powders in them to lend the color. They dull and change color, and it is difficult to keep them thoroughly mixed and the bronze in uniform suspension during use. Often the result is splotchy at best.

For the gold leaf, you apply a varnish designed to be used to apply the gold leaf. It goes on just as any other varnish would. Then a waiting time until it becomes tacky. I tap it with a curled knuckle on one hand, and you will know when it sticks and is ready. Then a fairly simple matter to lay on the gold leaf. You lay it on wide and I prefer to use use the leaf that comes on a paper backer and lift it off with a 'gilding brush' or comb.

Brush off the excess, it will not stick if there is no varnish. Burnish with a clean cotton ball, final step to add a coat of clear varnish over the top.

One trick of the old timers was to add some tint to the first coat of clear varnish. For a bright gold leaf, add a bit of yellow. This helps when applying it as you can easily see where it has been painted and avoids skips. And it also provides some depth to gold leaf if trying to apply the leaf over a dark color on the car body.

Yes price of gold is going up, but that leaf is so thin not a lot of ounces of it have to be purchased.

Bob Kutella

As a postscript to my last post, we need to point out that real gold leaf, or hobby bronze paint will need a protective clear coat in both cases. From the early days of George Pullman up to the more modern streamliner era, one or more coats of clear finish were the last steps on passenger car paintings. Thus the term "VARNISH" when referring to de luxe equipment. In the 1950's I believe the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad had a specified 14 steps to repainting a smoothside lightweight streamlined passenger car and I think at least the last two involved applying varnish after all the colors and lettering were done.

Modern materials may lead one to apply an acrylic urethane clear coat since they do not tend to yellow or go off color as much, unless you are one of the raging foaming purists and can tolerate no changes in materials or methods. Either way one or two coats of clear finish should preserve the work, especially if housed under roof, for 25 years or more.

Historical note: Chicago Surface Lines had thousands of streetcars, and they repainted EVERY ONE every three years, even new cars from the factory after the first three years. So in a typical volunteer preservation effort, it might take us three years to complete our first re-paint. The obvious advantage is that we can keep that experienced crew and tools together and merely walk to the opposite end and begin again.

Bob Kutella

Good to see you back, Bob.

I second Bob's suggestion that One Shot sign painter's paint is excellent stuff, and will easily last twenty or more years out in the weather and still look good. However, as Bob noted, it is not a metallic paint, and really only looks like dirty yellow.

I would not use striping tape, or computer cut vinyl, either. These tapes look great when first applied, but tend to curl and peel with time. At the end of ten or twelve years they look pretty sad, and their failure mode gives away the fact that they are modern materials, not a replication of the original.

I also caution against using art store gold paint... it typically has little UV resistance and doesn't hold up well to the weather. I know of one coach that was lettered with hardware store "rattle can" gold paint; in less than ten years the paint had mostly washed off the car.

Gold leaf has got to be expen$$ive these days with gold at $1700 per ounce. Gold leaf will last forever, but the substrate likely won't. This is a problem I just noticed on the Leviathan... the paint is peeling off the ends of the wood pilot beam, taking the gold leaf striping with it. A typical failure mode on car siding is to have moisture infiltrate the T&G joints and cause the paint to start to peel in the V grooves, and it will take the leaf with it. I think if it was my car, I'd stripe it with paint and see how the underlying paint holds up. One can always have real gold applied directly over the painted stripes.

In the past... now the far distant past... I have had good luck replicating metallic gold decals with automotive finishes applied right to the car side. There are many metallic finishes available; some have prominent metal flake visible, but others are pretty smooth. They are designed to give maximum life exposed to the weather. Problem is, they need to be sprayed. So, mask the striping with blue tape or sign painter's frisket paper and either apply with an automotive touch-up gun, or buy it in rattle cans from one of the outfits that sells DIY auto touch-up products via the internet. The last time I used some it was a Sherwin Williams product and worked quite well. Finish with a clear coat over the entire car side.

I believe that the One-Shot color you and Bob are referring to is called Imitation Gold, and yes it is basically a dark yellow. However One-Shot also makes a metallic gold lettering paint which we have used successfully on at least one car at IRM. It looks good and was easy to apply. That being said, the paint job in question was not meant to weather outdoors but was done with indoor storage in mind, and I'm not sure how well the One-Shot metallic paint would weather.

http://www.amazon.com/One-Shot-Metallic-Gold-Quarter/dp/B001SHD9G6
Disclaimer: I have no financial interest whatsoever in the link above.

One-Shot metalic gold paint looks very good. If the car is stored outside, it must be protected from the weather because the metal pigment will tarnish. I have used spar varnish with good results because it does not become very brittle with age and tolerates wood expansion and contraction with varying humidity and temperature. Spar varnish will yellow slightly with age so don't paint too far outside the gold.

I had forgotten that One Shot added metallics to their line. I've never had a chance to use them, but given the quality and workability of their other colors, I would suspect they will be excellent. Sign painting and truck lettering is one of the more expensive paint jobs one can buy, and the practitioners typically don't skimp on quality. An Added plus is, of course, that One Shot paints are formulated to be applied with a brush; actually a sigh painter's lettering quill. That would be my choice.

http://www.1shot.com/

As I said before, if the base paint holds up and someone wants to donate the $$$ for real gold leaf, you can always apply leaf directly over the painted striping.

The 1shot imitation gold works very well when paired with their "Restorative Clear" the actual name and part number escape me. It looks almost as good as the real stuff, but lacks the luster of real gold leaf. Our sign painter uses a foam roller to apply both products.

Thanks for the advice, i will go to Sherwin Williams and see if i can find the 1 shot gold. Sadly our car will be outside for a good few years so we have to make do with what we have.

Mike Pannell

Bob -

This is interesting. There seems to be the popular notion in the rail preservation field that everything has to be put inside. Yet, here you have given us the answer to what the REAL rail companies did! Repaint! Repaint! Repaint! Yes, I know that rail museums don't have the personnel, nor the time, to do that, and so the "store inside" mentality. But at least we shouldn't be afraid to repaint, as is needed! If CSL's company policy was every 3 years, I wonder what the policy was of the "steam" railroads. Only on an as needed basis? Or was there also a firm schedule set forth?

BTW, I agree with Dennis Storzek; it's great to have you back!

Les

Dick Blick Art Supplies has 1/4" real 23 karat gold leaf on 67 foot rolls for $54 a roll. No involvement with Dick Blick but I have been happy with my purchases of One Shot paint from them.

http://www.dickblick.com/products/roll-gold/

Richard Wilkens