I recently won a Lionel GP38 lettered "Nascar" from an E-bay auction. It is from a set breakup, & brand new. I would like to paint the shell black, & decal it for the New York Central, since Lionel will only replace a Nascar shell, with a Nascar shell! Any suggestions as what brand of paint I should use; brush versus spray; etc ? Or, where I might get a different GP38 shell to fit? Thanks for any reply(s)
Never use a brush. You can get nice spray paint from many sources. Krylon is great paint, Tamiya model paint goes on wonderfully, Floquil model paints can be had at your local train store. I would completely strip it first. Just spray that dude with household oven cleaner(the really bad smellling type) and scub with a tooth brush if there is any paint left after an hour or so. Wash it really well after and use a compatible primer, although that may not be needed if your going to repaint black. If your going to use decals, get a gloss paint for best decal adhesion. Then you can spray on semi gloss or flat clear after.
Roger
And make sure you have good ventilation.
Modeling the "Fargo Area Rapid Transit" in O scale 3 rail.
Westshore, as someone who has been repainting trains now for almost 20 years, let me offer some advice.
First, don't start with the engine. I'm getting the impression you have never done this before. Decaling is a fine art that can be mastered, but with practice. There are a lot of grooves and details on your loco to get decals to lay over, and for someone inexperienced, this could be frustrating. I'd suggest trying a beat up or cheaper box car, gondola or caboose as a first try.
Next, I would suggest you look for the decals FIRST. O scale decals are getting harder to find. Microscale is the largest producer of decals and in my opinion, also are the best. But they're dropping 0 scale decals like crazy. Even popular roads. I've spoken personally to the owner and he said there just isn't the demand for 0 scale decals even in popular roads you'd think would sell. He has made them and then had them sit in stock for years, so his discontinuing many.
Do a search here on this forum for decal suppliers. I posted a good list with direct links some months ago. That'll give you an idea of what's abvailable before you start a repaint project and then find you can't get the decals you envisioned.
In addition to the decals, you will also want a variety of decal fluids in different strengths. Microscale makes a couple. Champ made the best fluid for getting decals into crevices, but that's now getting very very hard to find. The Walthers fluid would be another one to get in addition to both strengths of the Microscale fluid.
This is an old photo of one of my older repaints. Notice the front grill and how perfectly the decals go into and over all the grill detail. This takes some practice, and also several strengths of decal fluid as well as several applications of the fluid.
There are also dry tranfers, but those will be even tougher to do on your GP shell. Dry transfers are a precision art.... you have to place them and burnish them correctly the first time.
In a nut shell, you are going to want to strip you NASCAR shell in isopropyl alcohol or brake fluid. Any paint you spray over the shell without stripping it first, you WILL see the NASCAR loco imprint in the paint. Once you strip the shell, you wash it good with dish soap and water. Then I'd recommend priming the shell. Priming will absolutely help your later coats of paint go on better. After primer, you should use a glossy paint: Decals go on better on glossy paint. Anything else will give you a lousy decal job.
You can use spray paint. Many of the plastic safe brands I have used are: Spray-N-Go, Touch-N-Tone, Krylon Spray-N-Go, Plasticote, Testors and the brand sold at Dollar General as well as Family Dollar. The gloss coat sold at Family Dollar is superb and I have found no better.... it's great! Goes on smooth. I've even coated non-repainted passenger cars just to give them that nice new "varnish" look.
You can use Rustoleum too, but only after completely priming (inside and out) with a plastic safe primer.
So look for the decals first, and also look for some junkers to do. A box car with side rivet detail would be a recommeded starting point to fine tune your decal technique.
brianel, Agent 027
"Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need."
As an afterthought, I'm not trying to scare you from doing the repaint. I'd like to see you get results you are pleased and proud of.
I thought later of your mention of getting another shell. I've seen shells for sale on eBay. Lionel has made both a GP9 and a GP20 in New York Central. I'm not sure about the GP38. BUT there's a problem here. I do believe your shell is attached to the frame via 4 screw on the bottom of the sheet metal frame. I KNOW Lionel is doing this with the new U36B, and I believe the same is the case with your loco.
The older Lionel shells I mentioned are attached to the frame with screws on the front and rear of the loco shell on top of the frame, right through the plastic of the shell and into two "L" shaped brackets attached to the frame. The handrail arrangement of your GP38 is also different from that of the GP9 and I don't think they'll work. The GP20 might, but you'll have to cob a way to attach the shell. It can be done, but it takes some creative work to do so. You'd have to create some of your own "L" brackets and get the hole lined up with the holes in another shell. Or you'd have to create some mountings glued inside the shell to accept the screws from beneath. Or you could use a shank screw holder with a blackened hex or button head screw, drilling two precisely lined up holes in the frame and the top of the shell and attach the shell from the top of the shell to the frame. I've done it this last way.
So in summary, it's not quite as simple as it might seem to be. But it can be done if you are determined.
First, I would like to thank all of you for your responses! At the age of 77, I still rely on the advice of others. I have Champ "O" gauge NYC decals (white lettering) so only need to follow your suggestions, for prep, & painting. Or, modify another shell. As far as I know, the Central never had GP38's, but, who cares, it's my railroad!
westshorefan (nearing the end of the line)
brianel you have convinced me to hire a professional to do my repaints. I like things done right, and the time required for me to learn to do a repaint properly just isn't worth it. Right now I have only three things that need repainted, and they are all Santa Fe F-3 2343s. I can buy shells in reasonably good condition for $100 +/-, and that would probably be what I would do. All 3 of the engines need repainted, but I think I can handle the trucks and frames. They are the easy part. At least I think they are the easy part.
A couple of us were having a discussion about what color the silver on the Santa Fe warbonnet engines is. I claim it is silver, and a guy I see at the trade shows claims it is a metalic gray. His repaints don't match my original engines at all. In this connection, what color of spray paint matches the Santa Fe engines the closest?
Bruce Baker
Westshore, I like your attitude of "it's my railroad." Exactly right. I'm not a big fan of the Champ Decals. The film is thick and you almost always get the decal lines: meaning you will see the outline of how you cut out the decals. Plus the white color on the Champ Decals I've used is sort of a soft, creamy white, not really a bright stark white color.
Here's another idea for you. If you are handy with any of the photo programs like Microsoft Digital Image and Microsoft Word, you could make simple decals on your computer, print them out and then copy them on to industrial size mailing label stock. That's about the thinnest paper stock I've found and those labels really do stick. To help "hide" the outline of your words "New York Central" you could place an unprototypical thin white line above and below the words, cutting the mailing label stock right on the white line with a metal straight edge and razor blade. With this method, you can make the words and hearlds the exact size you'd like them to be. You could find the hearlds on line and drop them into a black box and then cut that out to avoid trying to cut an oval with a razor blade.
And it is possible to work these mailing labels into your rivet/crevice details. If that idea appeals to you, let me know and I'll try and help you out.
Bruce, from reading your other posts you do have knowledge of trains. I don't want to discourage you. That Santa Fe War Bonnet scheme is a tough one to paint, if that's what you want to do the locos to. You might want to consider a simple one color scheme for a first project... maybe the Santa Fe blue freight scheme.
Being an 027 guy, I've learned you have to take some liberties. Full 0 scale decals are sometimes too big for my projects. I often use hearlds from larger sized HO scale cars or locomotives for smaller 027 types of cars.
Sometimes I can't find exact decals I want. Other times I just don't want to be wasteful, which in my thinking is prototypical since the real railroads were also cost wary. I recently did a Lehigh Valley gondola. I had an excess of yellow LV decals, so I did a black color gondola with the yellow lettering based on a Lehigh freight scheme, even though the yellow lettering on a gondola probably never existed.
On color, remember the real railroads had color variations due to differing paint stock, different shops and different time periods. The Lehigh Valley Cornell Red color has quite a few variations. I've also personally seen variations in Conrail Blue. There's subtle variations on Penn Central green too. When Conrail took over the 7 northeast US rail lines, they used up old stock of color from the included railroads, so there's quite a bit of color variation on "brown" Conrail freight cars.
Even the train companies can't get colors right and they have far more possibilities than I do. The Lionel starter car Erie Lackawanna box car from 2002 is absolutely the wrong shade of grey, as is the copy cat Atlas Industrial Rail version. Ironically, Lionel MPC did a far better job with the shorty 027 plug door Erie Lackawanna box car of the same scheme.... for a molded color car, (and again, by MPC no less) that one is far more accurate than the later versions.
Someone recently commented to me that my RED and YELLOW Conrail cabooses were not prototypical, until I showed him an actual photos of each which quickly ended the discussion. So do your best and come close... it's more prototypical than you think!
Hire Len Carparelli to repaint those Santa Fe F3's. He is a master at it.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Get the Classic Toy Trains newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month