Custom Painting N Scale Locomotives

[ronpetrich]

I have on preorder the undecorated Paragon 4 BLI E8 a/b units arriving next summer. I want to get them custom painted and decaled in the 50s/60s Illinois Central brown/orange scheme. I've been checking online for vendors who do this, and one in Arizona comes highly recommended. However several emails to him in the last 3 weeks have gone unreturned. So I wonder, despite the nice website and all, if he is still in business. I am in NorCal, can anyone recommend a reliable artisan to me? Thanks.

Ron

[hornblower]

Ron

 

You could always try painting and decaling the locos yourself.  Having custom painted a lot of my HO scale rolling stock, a friend asked me to paint a couple of locos in the red-white-blue Rail America livery for his N scale 4'x8' layout of the Ventura County Railroad we are building.  He has a Life-Like GP18 he is using as a pretty close stand-in for VCR 100 which is a GP7u.  He also has a Kato-built Atlas GP30 that he wanted to use, even though the VCR never owned a GP30.  I figure few people know much about the VCR and wouldn't know it's a Foobie so I numbered it VCR 300.  At a recent open house for my HO scale layout, I also had the Atlas GP30 pulling a train on the N scale layout.  Everyone seemed impressed with both the operating quality of the loco and the paint job!

 

I used inexpensive craft paints for the red-white-blue colors, custom decals designed on my computer and printed on Micro-Mark inkjet decal paper, and a mix of Mod Podge Matte and Gloss mediums to create a satin final clear coat.  I had to strip the factory paint off the Life-Like shell but the Atlas loco was undecorated.  I used a Harbor Freight Tools single action airbrush to spray the paint and yes you can indeed spray craft paints.  I added the decals and the final clear coat, then reassembled the locos.  They came out pretty nice if I do say so myself.  I looked up the photos I took of these locos but discovered they are rather poor quality.  I'll shoot some better photos and post them later.

 

I looked up the three-color IC brown and orange (plus yellow) paint scheme applied to their E units.  As lighter colors should be applied first, I would first shoot the entire shell with the yellow color and let it dry for 24 hours.  I would then mask off the shell for the wide orange stripe.  Cut the masking tape into thin strips to make it easier for the tape to follow curves (Tamiya also makes thin masking tape for just this type of application).  Once the curves are masked, add more masking to shield the rest of the shell.  Burnish the masking tape well, then spray one final coat of yellow to seal the edge of the masking tape.  Any paint that does seep under the tape will match the original coat of yellow and not be noticeable.  Spray the orange paint and let dry for 24 hours.  Finally, mask the shell to paint the rest of the shell brown.  Again, spray one last coat of yellow to seal the edges of the new masking before spraying the brown.  After the brown has completely dried, remove the masking and apply any necessary touch-up.  Now spray the entire shell with a clear gloss coat in preparation of the decal application. 

  

I have tried several brands of inkjet decal paper but find that the Micro-Mark decal paper gives me the best results.  You can use any computer graphics program to design your decals.  I actually use an old custom greeting card program as it is very flexible and user friendly.  The roadname and number decals should be rather easy to create.  First, find a font on your computer that closely matches the lettering in IC E unit photos.  Photos indicate that these would be simple black lettering on clear background decals.  If you want to create number board decals, these would need to be white lettering with black background printed on regular paper, or printed on white background decal paper.  As I did for the Rail America logo, the IC logo for the nose of the E unit could be created by downloading an image of the IC logo into your design program, then printing it out on white background decal paper.  I have found that the Micro-Mark white background decal paper does this best as the white background stays nicely opaque.  I like to use MicroSet and MicroSol to set my decals.  Once the decals are applied, spray one last coat of clear of the desired sheen to seal the decals in place.  Reassemble your locos, then kick back and admire your work!

[hornblower]

Here's a few photos of the GP30 I painted and decaled.

  

  

  

I had fun with this project!  I think your E units will come out fine as well.

[MisterBeasley]

I would look for a commercial decal vendor.  For a few decals, the cost is small and you can have white decals where needed and appropriate heralds you could never make yourself.  I have made my own decals at times, and have been very happy with them, but finding a few Milwaukee F7 decals made the whole project of upgrading that fleet worthwhile.