Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

The crank case/fuel tank base was done
with 5 coats of black lacquer and 3 coats of clear.

For the cylinder jug I wanted something less glaring than the typically too bright silver spray paint so I visited a nearby automotive paint specialty store and came up with a modern 2 coat wheel paint that is a very fine grained metallic yet darker shade of silver. I believe it may be a urethane and it requires the clear top coat be applied right after the base coat flashes or the clear coat will peel off. This means it must be cleared about 25-35 minutes after the base coat (with the color) is applied.

At first I didn't know this and after the base coat on the jug set up, I went about prepping and painting the crank case with all the layers of black lacquer. Now I thought I'd be smart and reassemble the engine and then clear-coat the whole thing all at once....wrong! 

So once again I removed the cylinder bore from the rest of the engine and called up the paint manufacturer for a little tech support. I scuffed the surface of the hardened paint on the cylinder jug and added another fresh coat of the base coating. Then I waited 35 minutes and clear-coated the fresh painted piece. Then left it to harden.

Back to the crank case casting.... I clear coated the now 3 days cured black lacquer with 3 coats of clear.
Did the same with the flywheels.

Polished what I could of the brass and re-assembled it and below you can see the result.

Enjoy,

Gil