Preparing to Paint

I need to get ready to paint a lot as the layout starts to come together.  There are lots of structures, cars and track that will need a good coat or two.  You know that I'm working to build up my paint supply.  The first question is "where do you put the paint?"

In my old shop I had a paint rack, so we'll need to build another one.  The old one was destroyed in the move, along with the paint.

I built this cabinet from a drawing I made yesterday.  It is 30" high and 24" wide, with six shelves.  The shelves vary in size, depending on the paints that I put on them.  The bottom shelf is large for big bottles of craft paint and paint thinner.  The next shelf up is for craft paints.  The rest are for model railroad paints like Floquil and Poly Scale.  The shelf is made of 1x3 cabinet grade stock and a marine plywood backing.  It was quick and easy to put together.  It will be heavily painted to protect it from spills, and then screwed into the wall of my shop.  I've spent most of today putting coats of pain on it.

Here is my old airbrush cabinet built for my last shop.  The filter was removed and will be replaced with a new one.  It is pretty dirty as its been out in the shed. Let's take a minute and clean it really good.

The last coat of spray paint goes on and it looks really nice.  We'll let it dry overnight.

The dirt and old paint were pretty thick, so I actually had to sand off some spots.  The glass top is for the lighting systems which sit loosely on top.  That way I can change out the types of lighting that I want, depending on what I'm painting.

Ok, it is going to need more that one coat of paint!  We'll leave it here and give it a few more coats this week.  I painted it white so that it better reflects light.  Makes it easier to see what you are painting.

I'll need to design and build a new fan ventilation system...so more to come.