Rebuilding a Roundhouse Boxcab

[doctorwayne]

I always thought ERIE's black and yellow paint scheme to be very classy-looking.

If you want to do safety stripes in paint rather than decals, place a piece of masking tape of suitable width sticky-side-down on a clean sheet of glass. Use a sharp blade to trim off both factory edges, cutting the remaining portion to the required height - the width will be taken care of once the tape is on the model. Use a square and straightedge. (The factory edges often have minor dings, and it doesn't take long for those edges to also accumulate dust and fuzz. Additionally, as the tape sits on the roll, the adhesive near the edges becomes slightly less tacky - no so good at preventing bleed-under.)

If you're doing light coloured stripes on a dark background, paint the model using the stripe colour, as it's much easier, after masking, to overcoat with the darker colour.

Lay out the stripe pattern on the tape, and then mark all of the portions which represent spaces (which will be the dark colour) with an "X" or other distinguishing symbol, then use your sharp blade and straightedge to make all cuts.
Next, choose a stripe which will be wholly on the front face of the locomotive or footboard, and determine the angle at which you want it to sit - use moulded-on details or window openings to situate it appropriately, and the straightedge to ensure that it's truly straight. Once that strip of tape is in place and properly burnished to seal its edges, apply the next piece of tape from the glass - this piece is used as a spacer, to keep the stripes parallel - butt it tight against the first piece, then continue taking consecutive pieces of tape from the glass and adding them in the same manner. As the striping reaches the front corners of the cab, simply wrap them around without causing a bulge at either edge of the tape, and the stripes will continue at both the proper angle and proper width.
When all of the tape is in place, use your square and a very sharp blade to trim the excess material - on the boxcab in the prototype photo, those cuts would be at the vertical front edge of the side window and horizontally below the widow sill, then vertically below the window at its mid-point.
Next, using tweezers or other appropriate tool, remove all of the tape strips which are marked with an "X", and, if necessary, re-burnish any edges of the remaining tape which may have lifted while removing the spacer strips.
Apply the darker colour and, as soon as it's dry to the touch, remove the remaining tape.

These locomotives were painted using the method outlined:











Wayne