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…............. --- Coal Mine Complex Paint & Assembly ---

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I'm getting closer to needing to put the coal mine complex on the layout so that scenery can be built around it. It has all been in individual prints to this point. Here I started using CA to glue it together. I only glued the parts of the complex where I would still be able to easily paint what had been glued together. Didn't want to end up having to paint parts of the mine where it would be hard to get into with a brush or air brush.

Below the main building and the part with the sloping roof at the back of it are all glued together. The area with the chutes going down and also the other areas that are above the two tracks are not glued to anything at this point. The maintenance building (near building in next image) is also not glued to the rest of the complex.

I'll come back to this page (instead of creating additional ones) and document the painting and assembly of the coal mine. With that in mind if interested you might want to 'bookmark' this page and check back every so often to check progress.

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For a video of the coal mine at this stage click the image above or ( HERE ).

I got out the Iwata air brush I bought a couple years ago and the paint booth I had built and only experimented with to this point. Decide to try painting a section of the coal mine that was a duplicate of the section that will be used so no harm if I messed it up.

I ran the output of the paint booth into the shop about 10 feet from where I was and experimented with the air brush some. Since the shop is large and the air brush doesn't put out much paint this seemed to be working well. The paint booth was taking the fumes away from where I was.

I then realized that if I wanted to first spray a coat of primer on this print and then the whole coal mine complex that was going to take a long time and use up a lot of expensive paint as there are a lot of buildings that need to be primed and painted. I got out a rattle can that had grey primer and used it to spray the print and also some of the roofs.

The paint booth worked well in pulling the paint fumes from me but dumping them in the shop produced a lot of odor and I'm sure not good air to be breathing. Needed to make a change so …...............

….... moved everything over near the garage door and went about making a filler piece with a hole in it for the exhaust tubing. The filler....

Goes under the raised garage door. It was made from some left over 3/8” CDX plywood I had and a couple pieces of 2X4 that I ripped for top and bottom stringers. It was a simple build and ready to try out after about an hour of work.

For details on building the paint booth click ( HERE ).

The filler is easy to use. Lift the door.... slice it into place and lower the door. Since the door goes up the track for it and curves there is now a small opening across the top where the curve is. Not bad and today was really windy and our first cold day in the low 30's. This is going to work well I believe. Quick to put into place and to remove and effective.

Once I work with the air brush a little more ….

.. I think I'm really going to like it. Trying to get a little practice with it before painting the DDA35 shell. Happy with how things were going I ….

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.… went and found another piece of plywood I'd saved from something I built and cut and set it up for the paint workstation as I need the plywood I had been using back for one of my work platforms.

Tried out the new space by spraying on a little lighter grey on the bottom level and tried mixing up some rust. I'm loving the gun and at this point would buy it again if I was looking.

To be continued, so check back to this page for painting/assembly updates .....

To go to the beginning of this build go ( HERE ).

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