Someone recently asked for my Russia Iron recipe. I thought I would find it in the scratch steam yahoo list, where I thought I described it, but apparently I never did. So here is how I made mine for my 4-4-0. I apologize in advance for the lack of science, or even repeatability.

I first painted the jacket silver. Actually, Poly Scale Stainless Steel, but I don’t imagine the exact species of silver matters too much. If I recall, I gave this a little buffing before the next coats. The next coat was a 1:3 glaze of D&H Avon Blue, which is a nice bright blue (again, I don’t imagine the species matters too much), in gloss. Glazes are tricky, especially if your airbrush wants to clog like mine did, and you have to know when to stop. I stopped when the colour was sort of a sky blue, so I could still see silver through the blue. Finally, I over-sprayed that with a 1:3 glaze of engine black, and I stopped that when I felt it looked good.