Prep is everything. Very happy with four-hundred grit wet/dry sandpaper and lots of water to remove old scratches, heat-stamping, and other rough spots from both plastic and diecast postwar junkers.
An idea I’ve been thinking about for lettering steam locomotives is to paint the lettering color on the model, then to make a negative of the lettering in black on clear film. A laser printer will probably give a darker, more opaque black than an inkjet. If you’re careful to make the decal fit some body lines on the model, it should be practical to completely hide the edge of the film and the thickness of the black print.
Good video Mike! In my opinion there's nothing wrong with taking a good condition post-war or MPC Era Lionel engine and re-doing it into something you'd like to have with something other than the generic and ubiquitous "Lionel Lines" motif. If the engine's in less than pristine exterior shape there's no sin in doing so since in this day and age the collectors aren't paying top dollar for anything in less than mint condition. I've redone several myself, two Lionel 2065 Hudsons into Jersey Central and Erie Pacifics (I replaced the four-wheel trailing truck with a two-wheel, not hard to do) and redid a 736 Berkshire into a Mikado with another truck swap, even easier. As far as smokebox painting goes I suggest Tamiya "Gun Metal" spray paint. It'll be a bit "glittery" when it goes on but when you overspray with a semi-gloss final finish the glittery effect disappears and you get a good representation of the graphite finish typically applied to steam engine smokeboxes. Worked for me! Since Testor's products seem to have disappeared around here I've been using Tamiya paints and have had very good results. As far as lettering is concerned from what I've seen yellow lettering (in various shades) was more typical on locomotives and tenders than white was, so if you're doing a fantasy paint job you're on safe ground with yellow. I wouldn't bother with white lettering unless you're modeling a railroad you know used it, for example the New York Central. So for anyone out there thinking about doing your own custom job, go for it! It's fun!
Looks awesome! So far, I made my own post-war C&O Freight diesel, Western Maryland Fireball and B&O Sunburst. Currently working on a pre-war project and painting an MPC Penn Central caboose in a different roadname because I ended up with 2 of the same. Thanks for the tips! 💯
Thanks, Mike. All good content. Any of the Tmiya paints can easily be thinned using 90% isopropyl alcohol to shoot with an airbrush.You can easily cut it to a 4 to 1 ratio or more without compromising the intensity of the pigments and make 4 or more bottles from a single bottle of Tamiya, reducing the investment costs. Tamiya acrylics blend really well with isopropyl alcohol like they are made for each other and shoot easily through an airbrush and clean up easily with just inexpensive isopropyl alcohol. The Tamiya acrylics thinned with isopropyl will dry fast and permanently and will not bleed when dry, not requiring a sealer. Just don't use any isopropyl over the dried coat as it will cut through it and wreck the paint job. Other water-based acrylics like Vallejo or craft paint can easily be applied over it for layering and weathering effects. Just be sure to use Vallejo's thinner for thinng as it doesn't thin well with isopropyl or water. This technique gives one the ability to apply other water-based acrylic layers without compromising the Tamiya base coat. I saw a video recently about a professional modeler recommending using craft paint thinned with automotive glass cleaner and distilled water to shoot with an airbrush having excellent results without clumping, using it with common craft paints such as Apple Barrel found at Wal-Mart, and Folkart, Americana Art-Deco, and Anita's sold at Hobby Lobby or Michael's. I don't recall the exact ratios, but he did say the Anita's required almost double the amount of thinner as he said it was a much denser pigments than the others. The Tamiya and Vallejo acrylics are superior colorfast pigments as compared to the craft paint acrylics and will be resistant to fading over time, and you'll likely have better results with one coat applications. FYI: I recently painted and weathered a couple of plastic brick buildings where I needed to seal the craft painted brick walls so I could fill the brick joints with spackle without paint bleeding into the motor joints and because I already had a can I used the large rattle can of the Rustoleum Matte finish and could still detect a slight gloss sheen. I got a small can of the Testors dullcote at Hobby Lobby for $8.49, and it does dry to a complete dead matte finish without a trace, and it's made by Rustoleum as well. Go figure. It's interesting to note I had a really old can of this leftover from the 90's that still sprayed down really well which influenced my decision to use the Testors dullcote instead of the Rustoleum Matte finish and it had a 89 cent sticker price on the can. It's hard to imagine a 1000% price increase in such a short amount of time. When you're in you 70's, for me, the 90s seem like just the other day.
Lots of good points. Regarding the $.89 Dullcoat, that must be a REALLY old can because I had a train shop for a short time in the late 1990s and we were selling Dullcoat for $1.75 back then.
@@ToyTrainTipsAndTricksYou're probably right. It was likely from the late 80s early 90's as that is about the last time I recall building a model requiring a dullcote finish.
I used to restore blow mold yard ornaments and used Citristrip paint remover to strip the old paint with no plastic damage. I haven't tried it on plastic trains yet.
Thanks for some good ideas and reminders. Back when I was doing a lot of this work, I used brand new Exacto blades, and straight and a straight edge to trim decals as close to the letters or logos as possible. Then, after covering everything with dullcote, it ws very hard to impossible to tell I had used decals at all.
Awesome tutorial! This is something the hobby has needed. I don't think yellow text on black will work well. I was making an Interurban car that had gold numbering on dark green background. I used clear background paper and the letters were dull and unreadable. I am hoping for your sake and mine that you can find a way to put light text and logos to dark backgrounds. Thank you!
I’ve wanted an O gauge 3 rail diesel locomotive painted for the Dakota Minnesota and Eastern but none have been made. Lionel made an Alaska set with a #1804 GP7 in blue and yellow. It’s not far in its color scheme from the DM&E. I found a set on CL with the engine not moving. Turns out that the gears on the motors often come loose and they won’t pull a knat. I got the entire set plus extra cars and track for $60. The engine train sounds is fantastic.
You should be able to get a darker black when printing on white decal paper and trim close to the letters with a very sharp scissors. You may have to move on to another graphics software that gives you more pigment shade selections. Black for me is easy to print. I have been doing this for 20 plus years. The secret for graphics printing is to do the artwork in full scale, then print at a percentage down say 5 percent and that will give you crisp lines without jaggedness in the lettering or graphics. My train items I did were lesser collectables, most original my grandfather did back in the 70s with a brush and commercial decals. He worked for the Pere Marquette and C&O railroads. I did re-strip his down and redid them with modern technology. He had painted over some expensive trains once I got his paints off. Thanks for the videos, I enjoy your channel.
You can also do what I call "proto-freelance" where you can model a railroad that is in real life, but you can run what you want. So you could model the ATSF 1 to 1, but you can also have the DD35 as a "well they saw they did good for the UP, so the ATSF decided they would test one, and they just never got rid of it and painted it into an ATSF paint job" Just remember, it's your railroad, you can do what you want. Just make sure you don't accidentally "destroy" a valuable historic piece.
@@ToyTrainTipsAndTricks I have no idea where the one we have came from. It just sort of was there... All I know is that it's Melamine (which whilst doing some research I found that it contains formaldehyde, which is very nasty stuff) and the same color. I don't think that we have a complete set. My dad is pretty much the only person who uses them.
If you used a border around the black area, say a yellow circle, you wouldn't have the two different shades of black right up against each other and the difference wouldn't be as noticeable
I've heard that oven cleaner is the preferred method for stripping the paint off of postwar diecast steam locomotives. Would you say that the degreaser could work, too? Thank you
What I never understood on the early Lionel and Mark's trains but I'm not sure about American flyers or others trains was why they didn't put a second coupler on the caboose......
They put a second coupler on "work train" sets and some premium pieces. Most 3 railers never do any switching anyway, and 25 cents a unit times 10,000 units adds up.
Not ALL inkjet printers can do this. Check the box the ink comes in; if it is dye based, it smears as it prints the decals. The inks must be pigment based, and not all printers use that kind of ink.
I just checked the Canon printer that I used for the video. The black ink is pigment when set for "plain paper", dye when set for "color paper". The decal instructions say to set the printer for "plain paper". The colors are dye. They are not in the video, but I have made color print decals using this printer in the past with success.
