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

Either put a jacket on the boiler that you are willing to paint instead of the boiler itself or possibly consider lagging it.

The D20 does look good with a black boiler, this may just be the lighting in this photo as it is listed as a polished nickel plated boiler on the Amazon page. Not sure I would advise painting yours though.

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Stefan’s Oldsmoky has painted several Wilesco boilers, maybe contact him and see what has worked best

I think the idea of using lagging would look so much better and more realistic!!!

I've painted a boiler before, back in 2012 and it still looks as good now as it did then.
This may sound like sacrilege but it was a Jensen boiler that needed a new plating job
but I wasn't going there.
I removed everything from the boiler and scuffed the surface lightly and evenly with 800
grit paper. Wiped it down with denatured alcohol, plugged the holes with corks and sprayed
it VHT Black paint. Once it dried I removed the corks and bake it in the oven at 250 degrees
for an hour. To me it looks good but I can always swap it out for nicer nickel one down the
road. It looks like this.

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I'd love to hear about brands of paint used that end up being durable during steaming!

I've just painted a Weeden Big Giant that has a steel tank that was nickel coated.  The nickel wasn't in good shape to begin with but then I discovered it had bad rust and started to leak on each steam up. 

So it was either a loss or try something.  I first sealed the inside with KBS cycle tank sealer, which that has worked.  However, the 1st stage of eating the rust out took what was left of the nickel and even exposed 4 pin holes.  I used JB Weld as a outside patch for the pin holes.  Then I needed to deal with the outside as it was just steel, so I had to paint.

I thought I was being good by selecting Rust-Oleum high heat paint but misread the label.  To properly cure this paint, you need to bake it to 450 for 1 hour.  Which isn't very good for the lead parts on a early Weeden.  I did about 3~4 hours at 325 but I have a feeling the paint will still get soft when steaming up (my first steam up before the 325 wasn't pretty).  I'll just have to be care but likely the engine will mostly stay as a "display".

Anyways, I think painting is workable but don't use Rust-Oleum high heat paint or any other high heat paint that requires 450 curing.  Even if you don't have lead parts, you likely have solider joints.  Granted different soliders have different melting points, unless you know you have silver solder joints (which I am pretty sure Weedens don't).

Here is my painted Big Giant, the black & sliver are the same paint type.  The black on the base & stack has done very well but I think that is because it gets fairly hot from the burner.  The Silver on the tank, is where I think it will keep on getting soft during steaming.  Or perhaps after time it will get harder...

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What exactly does using lagging mean? I always thought lagging was the asbestos (or whatever) wrapping around steam pipes. A lot of modelers of steam plants use string that is wrapped around pipes and then painted with white paint to simulate the real thing.
I’m learning by doing.
Anyone have any pics of what lagging is?
Thanks

Boiler lagging in the model world, is most commonly done using strips of wood, but strips of most any good insulative material would work.

In many cases, the actual insulative lagging is covered with a sheet metal jacket, as is common on Locomotives!

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