After another longish break in which SWMBO had me decorating, I'm back to painting and weathering. I've got a Lima EW1 on the bench at the moment. It had the modern <+> SBB CFF FFS emblem on it and I wanted to take it back to the original SBB + CFF one. My main problem was paint. The green used by the SBB is an NCS colour which is almost impossible to source in the UK. The nearest equivalent is RAL 6009 which is almost equally difficult to find. A bit of research however threw up a supplier in Cheltenham that specialises in car models and they do the full range of RAL colours in 60ml jars called Zero Paints that are pre thinned for airbrush use. They're toluene based so a bit dangerous to use on plastics unless they're fully primed but that said Halfords rattlecan primer suits. I have gone down that road and it works just fine. My EW1's bodyshell was stripped of the factory finish, primed with Halfords white primer and gently rubbed down afterwards to give a perfectly smooth base for the colour to be applied. So far I've sprayed the interior the correct cream and I have to say the paint produces a beautiful finish if sprayed directly from the jar at 18psi. I'll do the green tomorrow and keep you posted but so far I'm impressed.
