Painting Delrin Handrails

[stevewoodward]

Hey all! I used to do a lot of custom painting, and when it came time to paint delrin/celcon handrails I used to mix an automotive flex additive agent into the paint. Fast forward to today, and I've worked hard at adjusting to the new water based paints. I'm doing quite well with Pollyscale. But as far as painting handrails I'm not sure how to proceed. Here's what I've learned so far:

R/C paint for lexan car bodies. I have used this for painting the ends of railings white or yellow, but aren't helpful when it comes to painting entire handrails railroad specific colors.

Sandblasting. I've seen a few recommendations for a light sandblasting of the handrails, I think Badger makes a small unit.

Modelflex. I've been told this paint forms more of a "skin" around the handrails and remains a bit flexible. I've worked almost exclusively with Pollyscale, but would certainly give it a try.

Plastic Adhesion Promoter. I just found a can yesterday at the local auto supply store, and intend to experiment with it. It was mentioned once in MR and has been mentioned on a couple of other forums.

So that's the extent of my research, wondering what you all do here for painting handrails.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

[Smoke]

I use the bager sandblaster. I use baking soda as an agent after a tip from a member here suggested using it. It worls really well and I have not had any problems with it so far. You can get them for around $30 online.

-Andrew

[stevewoodward]

Excellent, thanks. I have a bunch of spare handrails, will experiment with both methods and report the results.

[CIOR]

Let us know what you think.
The best part of Adhesion Promoter is the fact that it BINDS the paint to the plastic. Its also well tested as most body shops use it to affix paint to bumpers and so forth.
Blasting the surface gives the paint a tooth, and works well also.

[cnwidecabnut]

I was about to start a new thread about painting delrin (amazing what you can find if you look for it.) My P2K FA-2 has delrin sideframes and I was stressing on how to weather them. With the excellent tips on this thread, I might actually start up again on my VIA FPA-4 project. My question is what is plastic adhesion promoter and where can I get some. Thanks,

[cnwidecabnut]

Thank you Jeff

[jbaakko]

There's a clear additive you can buy in some RC car shops, that's designed to convert model paint into flexible paint, similar to Tamiya. My closest LHS (2 blocks away) has been sold out for over a year now...

[wvsecondary]

Modelflex is supposed to "inbed" itself into the plastic. I to use Pollyscale almost exclusively and will occasionally use modelflex for difficult handrails that paint keeps coming off of.

[graftonterminalrr]

The Atlas forum contained a real good tip for painting handrails.

Mix some Automotive Flex Agent into your paint, and airbrush away. The flex agent will keep the paint flexible so that it won't break into those little "tubes".

[Deleted]

I know not everyone has one, but I use grit blasting. I blast the delrin and it gives it "tooth". I have never had any paint flake off. I can even air brush the end rails a seperate color, mask it with artist masking fluid and then when I finally paint the rest of the hand rails peel off the masking fluid without any flaking.

Brian