Re-painting accessory question

[traindaddy1]

Hi! Question for the "forget-about-the-value-just -do-your-thing" people: Has anyone had an experience with repainting Lionel accessories like the metal Automated Milk Car Platform, the metal Automated Cattle Platform or the metal based Gateman? I would like to clean mine up and am not really interested in the loss of the re-sale value. As always, many thanks.

[andregg1]

Be or not to be.......this is the question.
I like to enjoy my train, so if they needed paint , I paint.
After I will die, will not be my value problem.
Andre.

[Sturgeon-Phish]

I've repainted several train items. You can buy old stuff that looks bad but is structually sound cheap, clean it up and fix it and use it. I am primarly an operator and don't have slef pieces. There are exact colors for the accesories, or get close using krylon, rustolium or what ever spray paint. Sometimes you can get a very close match in color. If the piece is rough or rusty, remove the rust fill pinholes or rough surfaces with bondo glaze sand prime and paint. With a steady hand you can repaint details. If the take apart is complex, you can mask and spray. Cleaning overspray with thinner, testing in an inconspicious spot first. Value, well, that's a matter of perspective.
Jim

[brianel027]

YES. The milk platform is an easy one, but the same techniques apply to other items though may involve more work.

You can make the platform all one color but it looks better as two. Remove the silver metal "floor" from the platform assembly. Use a screwdriver and gently bend up all the tabs holding the platform to the base. Then use needlenose pliers to bend the tabs upward so you can remove the platform assembly. Using the screwdriver again to work it loose will probably be helpful.

Now, what's next depends on the condition of the pieces. If they have rust, you'll want to sand this down. If there are severe scratches you may want to strip the previous paint entirely, but I haven't found this to be necessary with anything I've redone. Wa***he parts completely in warm dish detergent to remove any oil or greese that could be on the parts. Blow dry all the pieces or place in warm sunlight.

Spray paint will work fine for these metal pieces. Rustoleum is great for pieces with some surface rust, but takes a while to dry. I recommend priming the pieces first using a grey, white or rust colored primer. Using the primer will help the final color stick better. And you will notice any color difference much less, say if you decide to change the colors of the item being redone. Krylon makes decent quality paint. For years I used a brand called "Spray-n-Go" which is now been changed a little and marketed as "Perfect Paint." It dries very fast and is a pleasure to work with... more so than any other brand I have used. Krylon makes another brand called "Short Cuts" which is my second choice to use. Never use Rustoleum on plastic parts that have not been primed first with a plastic safe primer. Spray-n-Go, Perfect Paint, Krylon and Short Cuts all work fine on plastic. One the plastic parts are totally primed all sides with a safe primer, Rustoleum can be safely used with no damage to the parts being painted. Use a gloss color or semi-gloss for the final coat color. Flat does look nice, but doesn't stand up as well to handling and dust. You could use a flat color if that's what you have, but then gloss coat or semi-gloss the parts with a clear coat.

I used to use a paint box with a heat lamp. You can just as easily use a blow dryer to help "bake" the paint to the surface. Spray paint does make a mess so it's a good idea to use a paint box if working inside with an old vacuum cleaner hooked up to help take in some of the dust and fumes. Follow the instructions on whatever brand of paint you buy. I will also note that the primer coatings are more forgiving than the final coats. Meaning you will notice inconsistancies less with the primer coats than you will the final color coats. The older postwar plastic items made with Bakelight and other kinds of plastic really need the primer coating... paint does not stick as well to bakelight as even the original Lionel Corp. found out.

Certainly an airbursh would be nice, but I've been repainting for 15 years using spray paint. Spray paint quality and adhesion has improved greatly over the years, and I get results that make many think I do use an airbrush.

When everything is repainted and dry for several days, then you can put the item back together carefully. If you need to use pliers, wrap some electrical tape around the ends of the pliers to avoid scratching the nice paint job you just did.

The gateman and other items will involve the complete removal of the electic parts and solenoid assembly. It's not hard to do, but it's a good idea to have a Greenburg Service book should you forget how things went back together. You might want to take a couple photos or make some notes to yourself how everything went. Label parts and screws using masking tape. Keep the parts together in a box or di***o avoid losing some. Nothing worse than redoing a piece, doing a nice job and then find you are missing one or two parts that you know you had to start with.

This isn't too hard, and with a little practice you can get good looking results. There is a little bit of an art to using spray paint and if you haven't done much of it, you might want to start off with some pieces that are not that important to you. Or an item that if you mess it up, will not be a big loss. The metal items are usually pretty straight forward to do and not as chancey as plastic items. Its nice to have trains that you picked up for a song and a dance, that didn't look to good when you got them, but will look as good as new when you are done... this has been a big part of my fun in the hobby.

I've always gotten pretty excited about junk. Friends ask why and I tell them it's because I don't see the trains as they are in their current battered condition... I see them as how they are going to look when I'm all finished with them.

[Anonymous]

If you're playing with them any enjoying them (the way they are meant to be played with and enjoyed), there's sure nothing wrong with painting them in any colors that appeal to you.

Brian's tips above are excellent, so go to it and "personalize" these things to your heart's content!

[traindaddy1]

WOW!!! Brian, what can I say but THANK You. All of you, many thanks.

[dwiemer]

I'll say thanks too Brian. I have several jobs I will be tackling soon.
Dennis

[brianel027]

An unsolicited advertisement here, though a note to Bob Keller: I can send you my address to forward a check should you feel so inclined. [:D]

There's a good article on airbrushing in the current issue of the Model Railroader. I always like to at least glance through the MR as there are frequently articles on kitbashing and scratchbuilding that can easily be adapted to our bigger trains. Given the financial constraints on the 3-rail train importers today, it isn't such a bad idea for us 3-rail guys to put this whole after-market collectible thinking behind us and have fun and make the trains you want that the importers are unable to do.

That said, a couple other painting notes. On items like the operating Gateman, there's a light inside the building. If you want to get rid of the "pumpkin glow" in this or anything else of the like, you will want to prime these parts with a darker color like grey. If you wi***he final color to be a light one like yellow or white, you will then want to put on a coat or two of a white primer on top of the gray.

The grey primer will effectively get rid of the translucent effect and make the building (or car) opaque. BUT it is hard to paint a light color like yellow or white directly over grey primer and it will take excessive coats to get the final color right. It is much easier to put on a couple light coats of a light colored primer like white after the grey. It is well worth the extra effort.

Likewise when doing a muliple colored item. Do the light color first, make your paint mask using a good quality masking tape and then use the previous light color and give a quick spray along the masking tape to "seal" it and help prevent color runs. Then do your darker color. I have done several muliple color Lehigh Valley, Reading, CSX and New Haven locos using this technique and it does work. Grey or dark red goes over yellow much easier than the other way around.

In the sometimes unavoidable and undesired paint run or fuzz, you can use an aluminum pie tin and spray some of the desired color into this. White it is still wet, you can use a small brush and do some small touch up in the exact color to fix some of those fuzz lines. Make sure your painted item has had a few days to dry because sometimes brushing on the color from the pie tin can loosen the color already applied.

You can also use paint pens and Shapie Markers to sometimes correct a small goof or unitended mistake provided the color is a good match... experiement first. I've gotten really good at mixing acrylic colors to exactly match the color on a train item that I need to fix. Mix your acrylic color on a white plastic butter di***op, let the color dry and compare it to your item you want to touch up.

Likewise small nicks and scratches can sometimes easily be touched up with a Sharpie Marker. I remember looking a some train car and seeing a small paint nick. Using a marker and a small tissue I was able to fill the mark and no one wiser would be able to tell.

I wish I had done some before and after photos of some of the things I have done. Friends that knew what junk I started with were always impressed. But really, the only person you need to impress is yourself... go have fun!!

[traindaddy1]

Brian: Thanks again.