brianel,
thanks for the tips, very informative. I didnt' strip the original paint, I have shot primer so far, I'll see how that comes out (ie, how much detail I lose), otherwise, I can strip it later and start over.
I just really want to point out to people the problem with the wiring in my units. One truck was wired with the red pickup to the outside rail and black to the middle, while the other was opposite, causing a dead short. This was caused by the previous owner swithcing trucks between locos, I assume in an attempt to figure out which motor was bad. However, they didn't pay attention that the wiring was backwards from the one they took out, and frankly I didn't check either at first. Who would have thought that would have occurred?
Well John, all I can advise is to start small and work your way up as your confidence and skill level grows. There's no school for this... there's no college course on Train Refinishing 101. But there really is no better teacher than practical experience itself. Start with beaters, like an old Lionel SP caboose and build up from there. I also found early on, working in the evening is a great idea. You are more awake and you do work a little in progress on a piece, and then you leave it be and go to bed. The next time you get an evening free, the piece is then ready... be it paint drying or glue setting, for the next step.
I've just been very persistant about all this. I never buy any train item without completely pulling it apart upon purchase. My freinds think I'm nuts, but I want to know how that item was made and put together. And I study it to figure out what improvements can be made. for example, I can say the later K-Line S-2 shells are far easier to repaint and decal as the space or indentation between the engine hood doors was reduced. On the older shells, I make fill in pieces out of narrow strips of Plastruct and glue them between all the engine hood doors, to make future decaling much much easier. On my Lionel Waffle Box car repaints, I do a couple extra coats of primer on the sides to help fill in a little bit, the cast in detail on the car shell that does make decaling quite a challenge... not impossible, but a real challenge. Had the designer at Lionel been thinking, they would have made that car's tooling with a little less deep detail level indentations to make the painting much easier and less difficult. Lionel doesn't put much paint on these cars, so having less-pronunced waffle detail wouldn't have hurt the car's appearance at all. And would have increased production efficiency. Why else would have Lionel MPC removed all rivet detail from the sides of the 9200, 9400, 9700 series box cars? Painting and lettering ease.
Years ago, I was on the phone talking to a service tech at K-Line. I told her a bunch of things about K-Line products and she politely took me to the point. But I insisted as a train operator and one who really gets into this, that I wasn't wrong and invited her to prove me wrong. An hour or so later, I got a phone call. It was the woman from K-Line. I hadn't given her my number, so I was impressed that she must have taken the time to look me up on their data base. She called to tell me that everything I told her was spot on correct. She tried the things I told her and checked the things I said were mistakes and said to her surprise that I was right. And she thanked me for the tips and observations. I've had similar experiences with techs at both Lionel and MTH also.
There really is no better teacher in this hobby than hands-on practical experinece and tinkering with stuff. Remember, it was the members of the OGR forum that helped MTH get the bugs out of the DCS system when it was first introduced. It's one thing to work at a company that subscontracts products to be made.... it's another train of thought to actually use those prouducts and to see first-hand how they can be improved. And many times, those improvements are not costly and quite simple actually.
brianel, Agent 027
"Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need."
Brianel027:
Wow. All I can say is that your work is indeed, impressive. Having no real prior hobby experience to starting my current layout, many steps have been very daunting. However, after going through them, in hindsight, they were not too difficult. So, even though the steps involved in repainting a locomotive appear to be overwhelming, I am intrigued at the possibility.
Given your proficiency, it would be great if you could provide a step by step picture samples of your next repainting project. I would love to see how you get to the finished product.
The biggest hurdle I have to get over when tackling a new challenge is having the approriate amount of patience. When I am patient, I find that I can actually accomplish some things I thought were beyond my abilities. For me, that is one of the coolest things about this hobby.
Regards,
John O
Well John, the answer is YES and NO. To do the job right, yes, it is some work and takes patience and time. But in my view since modern roads are so ignored by the companies on smaller train items, I enjoy the process and for me it isn't work because I want modern roads. In the run of the original K-Line company only one single MP-15 was issued in Conrail, one single MP-15 in Norfolk Southern and two issues of the same MP-15 in CSX. Other than the uncataloged, employee-only Conrail promo items, this was it. And the NS and CR MP-15's were done very early on as with the CSX. The CSX MP-15 was re-issued again with a caboose, but the trucks were done in a hideous blue and I just couldn't bring myself to buy that one.
So the repainting has been a absolute necessity for me. In addition to CR and NS, I'm also very fond of the predecessor roads that went into Conrail, so CNJ, RDG, PC and LV are also very common on my layout and have done many repaints into those roads too.
Probably the toughest part are the paint masks. Take a loco like the two-color yellow and green Reading paint scheme.... I have several done in this. You have to give enough time for the yellow to dry completely before doing the paint mask. Extra care is necessary in this process to avoid paint runs and paint fuzz. But I've mastered the process and get professional results every single time.
Decaling also takes some patience. I was at a show where I had some repainted Lionel Waffle Box Cars... the Conrail ones I did was attracting a great deal of attention. I got a lot of questions as to when Lionel made those and were they uncataloged. When I told folks they were my own repaints, they were astounded and looked closely and commented on what great decal work I did, since I got the decals to go into all those many crevices so well.
But I have been determined to have smaller 027 kinds of trains in these roads, so the work process becomes minor at least in my eyes. Though I wouldn't be honest to tell you there isn't some work involved between stripping the original paint, prepping the shell, making the alterations, priming the shell, painting and making paint masks, doing the decal work, and then the repsective gloss coats and final dull coats.
It's really all a matter of what is important to you. Since I am limited in space and finances, the smaller non-scale trains are a necessity if I'm to have a layout. For the life of me, I have never understood (given the overwhelming positive reaction I get to the modern road repaints) why Conrail, Norfolk Southern, CSX and BNSF are so ignored by the train companies on these smaller trains, but they are.
I have a Lionel starter 4-4-2 steamer done in Norfolk Southern. It amazes me how even little kids go nutty over that one... they DO recognize that horse logo, especially little girls. They jump up and down and point out to their parents "look at the horsey on that train." Boys will comment to their dads "that's like the one we saw the other day."
I guess I feel the same way too. I haven't done it yet, but I have plans for another Norfolk Southern repaint (either an S-2 or a K-Line NYC or Wabash Also FA shell), only this one will have the current slant-style logo with the white window and marker board trim. I take particular joy in repainting anything factory done in NYC or PRR... I don't know why... maybe it's just a knee-jerk reaction to so many items being issued in only those two roads. I do have a few items in those 2 roads that will be left alone. But there are far more items offered in those 2 roads, so there's plenty to choose from to repaint. The Penn Central loco above was originally a K-Line PRR loco, so at least going to PC was prototypicial in process.
Brianel:
I like the paint jobs! Well done. Is it a lot of work to repaint a loco?
Daan,
It would be pretty neat if you could take several photos of the swap procedure.
The motors used in these truck mounts are available everywhere for a few cents. I swapped mine for 2 sanyo motors out of a videorecorder. The only thing is to get the pinions from the old motoraxle. The swap is straight forward and easy to do. Also only 1 motor will do just fine and will have plenty of power for shunting some cars on a harbour track.
I'm more fan of the mp-15, also a cheap engine when bought used, but it has metal trucks and better detail. Though the S2 can't be beaten by price anyway..
Jason, I'm as much of an expert on the K-Line S-2 as you will find here as I own dozens of them. It is without question, my favorite loco of all time.
For staters, you don't know what kind of circuit board you have? The Lionel type and the K-Line type use differing colored wires in differing set-ups even though the boards are all made by Sanda Kan. Next time you embark on circuit board set up, check the wires coming from the motor... you can see the colors of them from the side. By process of elimination, your other colored wires will be the ones from the wheel/center rail pick-ups. As a general rule, the black and red wires running off the K-Line circuit board go to the same colored wires off the trucks. The brown and blue wires off the circuit board control direction, with the brown wire going to a yellow one from one truck and a blue one from the other truck. The blue one off the circuit board going to the remaining two blue and yellow wires off the trucks. The light bulb wires go to the red and black main power wires.
You will probably want to install a small spring (I got mine from old computer keyboards that I pulled apart and scavanged for parts and pieces) on the front truck between the underside of the frame and the guide pin that inserts into the curved cut in the frame. This will almost totally eliminate the commonplace derailments that happen with the smaller K-Line locos when under load of a train.
I would also advise (for better running) removing one traction tire off each truck. K-Line put the traction tires all over the place during the run of the S-2's. Sometimes they're on the same axle of one truck, others on opposite wheels of the same truck. The Mabuchi motors in these types of locos almost never run at the same precise speed. Removing two traction tires will help reduce noice growl on curves and will not affect tractive power too significantly. Adding some additional weight can help, depending on how your loco runs.
You K-Line S-2 WILL RUN as slow as your GP if you use either a Lionel 1033 at the B-U voltage post setting (0-11 volts) or any other transformer that starts with a zero setting. Most postwar Lionel transformers start off with 6 volts to the track, and that will make these little locos run like jack rabbits without a train. Even the cheapie basic no frills K-Line starter transformer will run these locos better than a Lionel ZW or similar type transformer, unless it has a zero starting voltage.
You may want to consider adding some details before you get your loco finally painted. You can cut open the indented window off the back cab door for starters. Use a small drill and make a center hole. Then use a larger bit and get the hole bigger. Then use a small file to gradually square off the round hole. Small marker lights can be installed at the front of the loco using Model Power 12 volt red bulbs with leads. A strobe light can be added to the cab roof using a 6 volt flashing mini Christmas bulb with a small yellow/amber dome. A piece of 1/4 inch black shrink wire wrap can be used over the major part of the light fixture and lower part of the bulb to keep the flashing light from showing in the cab.
I would also recommend cutting off some of the wire hand rail length that inserts into the cab. Leave just enough for it to poke into the cab hole. File the shortened handrail length to avoid paint scratches. I've cut mine shorter than this and then added a very small tube of black Plastruct tubing over the handrail so that this just butts against the outside of the cab. On others, I've cut off that last section of handrail and then alternately bent up and down the handrail stantions that insert into the frame... this keeps them stiffly in place.
You can also use a Dremel Cone cutting bit and put a nice triangular hole into the decorative horn which makes it look loads better.
Here's a few of my many of my custom paint jobs....
Well,
I won the lot of K-line S-2's off ebay that had supposedly one bad motor, one good circuit board and two bodies. I wanted them so I could make some FJ&G S-2 engines, as that's where my wife is from (she doesn't know it, it's a surprise).
Well, I put the chassis on the track and no go. I keep looking at it, and even swap the circuit boards to no avail, keeps overloading the transformer. Finally, I unsolder everything to try seperately. Guess what? The motor trucks had been swapped between chassis. One chassis had trucks where the red was to the outside rails and one had where black was to the outside rails. Now it really doesn't matter being AC, but you need to be CONSISTENT. one truck from each train ended up on each chassis, therefore causing a dead short. Once I got it fixed, it's working great. The other one had a bad motor (for sure, infinite ohms), so I took the trucks off and removed the motors, effectively making it a dummy.
I primed one cab tonight with one of those cheap testor airbrushes (this is a cheapie project). For my first time truly using any kind of airbrush for real (I had used it once before), it went pretty well.
I'm getting "rehooked" into the train thing, although I must stop as my budget is being exceeded. But it's fun, and my kids look up on the wall (not quite old enough for their own yet) and watch it go around the shelf.
I'd like to get a repair manual (though the S-2 was pretty simple inside, the circuit board was the most complex and it's probably cheaper to buy a whole new board than the components in there), mainly for my Lionel AC trains (my old Conrail Engine is running mightly sluggish). Any manual that's really good?
The K-line S2 seems to be a pretty strong engine, I was kinda dismissing it as Cheap, but it seemed strong. Wouldn't run as slow as my Lionel GP-9 though.
Jason
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