Painting the Roof and Auxiliary Elements of the Faller Station

Although the roof of the Faller station came out of the box sporting some nice burnt out marks, given the technology used to produce it, it still didn't look quite all right and proper painting had to be done. Along with the roof, 4 other element types had to be painted as well: the rain pipes, benches, trash bins and the window sills being mounted on the roof itself.

For the roof itself, the following formula was used: 

- 0.6 Tamiya Yellow (XF-3)

- 0.4 Tamiya Flat Red (XF-7)

- 1.0 Thinner (acrylic)

3 coats were applied, out of which the first was a light one.
For the rain pipes, benches, trash bins and window sills, it was decided to use gray for all of them - one of the reasons being that the box cover image actually had these gray as well. All were simply placed on a sticky tape side up - fixed itself on 2 perpendicular pieces of sticky tape. The "stickiness" was strong enough to hold the pieces down under the air flow of the airbrush. 3M Vinyl masking tape was used on certain parts of the window sills, since those will be glued on - and paint shouldn't get in the way.
The rain pipes only also had 2 coats of Tamiya Smoke, so they get a touch of metallic look.

Final roof color

Auxiliary elements getting ready
to be airbrushed

Bench before being painted

Bench after 2 coats of Tamiya J.N. Grey

Rain pipe detail after painting
with Tamiya J.N. Grey

Rain pipe detail after painting
with Tamiya J.N. Grey and 1 coat
of Tamiya Smoke

Rain pipe detail after painting
with Tamiya J.N. Grey and 2 coats
of Tamiya Smoke

Glueing the Roof on the Faller Station

  Once the decision to have the roof of the main station detachable was made, the next step was how to actually glue this in place. Additionally, painting will also have to be done, since (1) the bare plastic won't look well under any kind of lighting and (2) there needs to be some tooth for the weathering powders to actually adhere to.

  All needed in order to have one continuous piece ready for painting was to glue the main sides of the roof together, followed by the 2 small panels located on each side and also the ridge caps (a long one for the joint of the 2 main sides + 2 smaller ones for each panel-set on the sides).

  The pieces were first washed (a drop of liquid wash detergent added to a some warm water) and completely dried, while also removing some of the burnt plastic that resulted from the laser cutting process, since in some cases this was found right on the joints where adhesive would have been applied. For the 2 main sides and corresponding ridge cap, Bison 5-min Epoxy was used, while for the rest - Bison Plastic Cement. Reading around the web suggested that the epoxy is superior in strength to the plastic cement - albeit a rather short and subjective process on my part, hence the reason for it being used on the main roof sides. The masking tape was only used to keep the side panels together, given that like this they would rest just fine, unable to fall off until the cement set.

  It was also a good chance to test the Proses Magnetic Clamps that I bought one year ago, and they did a really good job in holding the main roof together until the epoxy became solid; luckily enough, there was just enough space between the paper mask and the roof for the underside of the clamps to fit into.