I have been painting about a model a week for the past year of model trains O Gauge and a few vehicles. While I have an airbrush I mostly use Tamiya for plastics spray paint cans. Normally when I repaint a model train engine or freight car I sand off the old paint and decal colors edges then give it a base coat of Tamiya paint after a good cleaning as mentioned above. I find that with these Tamiya paints I am able to give a light coat of paint every 20 minutes leave it to dry for an hour before masking for the next color. Really difficult to get the masking tape to stick and cover over the large rivets, grills, doors and ribbing etc. depending on the model. After masking with trim masking tape and then masking over other areas I spray a coat of the color I have just masked off to seal the edges of the masking tape to reduce the chance of paint bleed. Then I spray on the next color I am using. After an hour of the final coat I can decal then when dry spray with Tamiya clear coat matt or semi gloss.
On the decals I print from my home ink jet printer I use Experts Choice decals by Bare metal foil. https://www.bare-metal.com/exp...oice-decal-film.html
After printing I give them a light then 2 heavy coats of Tamiya semi gloss clear coat. Once the model is decaled another clear coat.
I find the Tamiya paints are excellent go on smooth as silk dry very fast, I do not need to clear the nozzle after use. The Testors paints take for ever to dry, do not go on even and nozzle always clogs of leaks.
Good luck and have fun with your project. About a 1/4 of my train fleet I have custom painted engines and cars I really enjoy running my custom paint creations! Just heading off to start repainting a new engine pair I got today!
