I have eight Blue Box hoppers -- all lettered PRR 220558. One of them has been assembled, weighted, weathered, loaded and made ready for service. The other seven MUST be renumbered.
What's the best way to remove Athearn's lettering without damaging the car so badly that I can't hide the damage with weathering?
ChuckAllen, TX
While I haven't tired taking just printing off with an exacto blade, I am not steady enough to have any hope that it would work.
Pencil erasers, solvaset and scotch tape have either taken off adjacent paint or done nothing.
Personally I would just paint a patch over the numbers and re-decal. Maybe that's not the most prototypical, but it's my railroad.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
The numbers are small enough that a very fine brush and paint close enough is going to get the job done. Once there's a new number decal in place, you'll barely be able to see the telltale sign of the painted over pad printing.
Usually, I can take a Q-tip loaded with alcohol and just rub the letter/number off.
If the car has glossy paint, the alcohol will dull the paint, but it's easy to just hit the area with some glosscote.
Rust...... It's a good thing !
I'm a fan of trim film.
http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=TF
cut strips just slightly larger than the numbers you want to cover and apply your new numbers over it. Be sure the film has completely cured so applying the new numbers doesn't cause it to move.
There are other suppliers of "patch-out" decals but I've only used Microscale, personally.
I recently renumbered about fifty Bessemer ore jennies. I was fortunate here as the MTH pad printing "chipped" away easily with a sharp blade. I trimmed down an X-Acto #17 to just the width of the printed number, or the curved-edge #12, and carefully scraped it away. Every manufacturer uses different formulas of ink/paint so you may not have the same luck with scraping.
BnLE_ore-hopper-1 by Edmund, on Flickr
MTH in all their wisdom only offered the cars in three different numbers.
IMG_1151a by Edmund, on Flickr
Good Luck, Ed
Little TimmyUsually, I can take a Q-tip loaded with alcohol and just rub the letter/number off.
This works well for me, but it takes a bit of patience and determination.
ELO and Brake Fluid will lift the paint also. Do not use these to remove lettering.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Try 3M automotive scratch remover on a wooden Q-tip. Go slowly as the process is technique sensitive. It should leave you with a polished glossy surface without damage to the base color. Then decal and airbrush with Dullcote and you should be in good shape. I have used this process to renumber many Athearn, Kato, Atlas locomotives through the years with good results. Remember work slowly and good luck.
The alcohol rub works for me. Work slowly because you can cut through to the base paint.
Scraping works, but you want to keep the blade such that it does not dig in and leave a deeper mark.
Having said that, these methods can be touched up with a base color.
The mild abrasive on toothpick sounds better than the two above.
Also, I've had success: Instead of removing paint, you can ADD paint to the numbers to change an existing number to a different similar shaped number. Change a 3 to an 8 by closing the loops with the paint color of the number. A 5 to a 6 by adding number color and adding body color in places. An 8 to a 3 by adding body color. A 9 to a 3, maybe a 7 to a 2 etc.
If you can be precise enough with a small dabbing brush action, any imprecision can be covered with weathering.
- Douglas
DoughlessScraping works, but you want to keep the blade such that it does not dig in and leave a deeper mark.
Way back in the day I used a #17 X-Acto blade to scrape lettering off of an Athearn freight car.
It worked perfectly, and was easy to do.
Then I tried it on a second car, and it was a disaster!
I get so frustrated when something works well, then does not work a second time!
I have a secondary question about the number changing process.
I have a bunch of Athearn BB Canadian Pacific 40' freight cars with the same number. My problem is not being able to get the old numbers off, but it involves matching the new numbers to the often faded printing on the rest of the car. Athearn seems to have pushed their printing pads until they were virtually dry because some of the printing is very faint while on other cars the printing is quite bright. Matching the bright printing is easy. Matching the fainter printing isn't.
I realize that the simplest solution would be to patch over the old number with paint or trim film, but I'm not fond of the look and I'm not sure if it was a common practise for CP.
Any suggestions?
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
hon30critterMatching the new numbers to the often faded printing on the rest of the car.
Dave,
If you can find a usable set, old Champ number decals can come pretty close to matching Athearn paint.
Microscale is absolutely way too white and opaque to be a good match. K4 decals are also very bright white.
One of my regrets is that the white circle in the SGRR herald is such a bright white. It can look garish in some photographs.
SeeYou190If you can find a usable set, old Champ number decals can come pretty close to matching Athearn paint.
Thanks Kevin,
These BB cars are how many years old? Mine are maybe going on 30. I just took one out of a box and tried alcohol on a Q-tip rubbing very lightly for about 45 minutes. Heres what I have to show.
First picture is what I think the OP has except mine is lightly weathered. Showing the style of letters and numbers.
The second picture shows what I ended up with on a clean car. Notice the red on the Q-tip. And lets remember the tiny numbers on the ends of the cars need changed also.
Click on the picture to open a larger picture then enlarge that picture and you will see the mostly perfect red paint under where the white print number was removed.
I remember using in the past Colgate tooth paste on a Q-tip , Solvaset, alcohol, an X-acto blade and lightly scraping the numbers. Sometimes when the body paint would get thin and show the plastic, I would feather paint in the body color. When I know the original underlying numbers are visible under new paint and new numbers or film that just drives me nuts.
I have not tried a wet Q-tip with Baking Soda on it for model trains yet.
hon30critter I have a secondary question about the number changing process. I have a bunch of Athearn BB Canadian Pacific 40' freight cars with the same number. My problem is not being able to get the old numbers off, but it involves matching the new numbers to the often faded printing on the rest of the car. Athearn seems to have pushed their printing pads until they were virtually dry because some of the printing is very faint while on other cars the printing is quite bright. Matching the bright printing is easy. Matching the fainter printing isn't. I realize that the simplest solution would be to patch over the old number with paint or trim film, but I'm not fond of the look and I'm not sure if it was a common practise for CP. Any suggestions? Dave
Read my post above. Adding paint to a number can change a number. You can match the paint. If you use the dabbing technique, body color may show through and the eye will pick it up as faded paint.
Yes, decals are often too prisitine or of a brighter color than the other lettering. Try simply changing a number to a similar number rather than removing the number entirely and then replacing it/them.
Weathering can conceal imperfections.
You may have too many hopper cars and could run out of similar numbers to change.
DoughlessRead my post above. Adding paint to a number can change a number. You can match the paint. If you use the dabbing technique, body color may show through and the eye will pick it up as faded paint.
Hi Douglas,
I did read your post about using paint to modify the numbers. My problem is that my hands shake when I try to do detailed work so I'm not sure that I could do the job well enough to make it look convincing. However, it is worth a try. I've got a few Tyco cars that I could practice on.
DoughlessYou may have too many hopper cars and could run out of similar numbers to change.
Say what?!? Too many cars?!? Never!!!
Seriously, even if I can only modify a few of them it would be an improvement. I will just have to try to avoid having duplicate numbers close to each other in the same train. The other solution is just to run the trains faster!
Thanks for your input.
I have 7 Tyco/Mantua Pennsylvania hoppers all numbered the same. I've weathered them with powders and sealed them with flat sealant. Has anyone tried alcohol or anything else to renumber cars after they've been weathered and sealed?
I'm not a river counter. I'm not sure that doing this would be worth the time and effort. These are my 50-year-old clamshell operating hoppers, now with new trucks with metal wheels and body-mounted Kadees. They run flawlessly and I seriously don't mind the duplicate numbers.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Lastspikemike Not quite following the description. I see the red paint mostly removed while some of the numbering remains. Am I missing something here?
Not quite following the description. I see the red paint mostly removed while some of the numbering remains. Am I missing something here?
Are you missing something, maybe so. Or maybe it's how I tried to explain it.
I'll try to explain it again.
The body paint color is red (lets call this the first coat) the white number (lets call this the second coat) are painted over the red giving you a total of two coats of paint.
Now lightly scrub away with a Q-tip and alcohol at the white number and you will start to remove the white painted number and some of the red body color around the white number.
Now if you look very close at the photo below, you will see a red "footprint" of where the white painted number is being removed.
Yes, not all of the white numbers are removed in the photo. I was not finished.
I am sure what will work on one car can be difficult or not on another of the same type.
I've removed numbers using a tiny amount of rubbing alcohol on a q-tip or pencil ereaser. You also can cover over the existing number(s) with decals. I have cars from Atheaarn like that and it looks quite realistic.
PC 101
Don't think I'll try alcohol on a Q-tip; the 7 BB cars I have to renumber are lettered PRR 220558. I bought these at a train show a few years ago but they may well be over 30 years old.
I have some latex and non-latex erasers that are kind of pyramid shaped. I'll try those first and if that doesn't work, I'll try scraping. I'm afraid though that I'll have to over paint the last digit or the last 2 or 3 digits.
The orange-bottle GoJo mildly abrasive hand cleaner has worked for me in some tough cases. I use a cotton swab with a wood shaft to apply a tiny touch of GoJo and use increasing pressure until the lettering starts coming off.
There are still some cars where the paint is thinner than the lettering and comes off first, though.
-Fritz Milhaupt, Publications Editor, Pere Marquette Historical Society, Inc.http://www.pmhistsoc.org
When I first learned that I could purchase undecorated Athearn rolling stock, that was pretty-well the end for me as far as pre-lettered cars and locos were concerned. I was never much a fan of r-t-r, either...I think I have only two or three such cars.Everything else was custom painted and lettered, either built from kits or kitbashed, and, in a few instances, scratchbuilt.
Undecorated stuff seems to be much scarcer nowadays, possibly due to the lure of r-t-r, especially for those now joining the hobby.
This car was supposedly r-t-r....
...but a lot of work was needed to get it to the state shown above...
...and I still need to modify the re-weigh date.
This one, also r-t-r, had the same number as the first one, obviously changed. It got similar modifications, and also needs a new re-weigh date....
There are another six of these much-modified cars currently on the layout...
...and another four, undecorated, and in kit-form, currently languishing at the home of a friend in Ohio, awaiting opening of the border.
Wayne