Wanted - tips on painting shells

Be sure to scrub the shells in some soapy water.  Use a toothbrush to get in the louvres and cast on details.  Let air dry, then avoid picking it up with bare hands.

What kind of paints are you using?

For my first test shell i used valspar spray can - it actually turned out really nice - i used soapy water and wetsanded all the rough areas - its a shell thats i got for 99cents on ebay and its a good practice item.  Actually looks good enough to use except its solid red with no decals or other paint.

I am searching for a paint that matches the santa fe silver exactly so i can paint a B unit shell that is the wrong color.    I am open to using a airbrush as i am pretty good with automotive painting.

 

 

 

Here is one source of paint.

http://www.weavermodels.com/page11.html 

Painting-  I would say using an airbrush or spray can would be the best bet.... using a brish is a big no no in most cases

Silver- A few companys make reproduction paints so I think the silver should be easy to find... if not you could have an automotive store mix a matching paint.

 

Alex

As one who has done what could conservatively be called an extensive amount of repainting, you want to do everything right. Including a good paint. But what scares me about this particular project is the paint masking. Man, that'll be a tough job for certain to get it right.

I'm not a big Santa Fe fan, as least as far as repainting goes, so I don't know if there's a Warbonnet set of decals in O scale. Microscale would be one website to check. But even though the Lionel F-3 is pretty darn close to scale, there's times when you have to fiddle and carefully trim full O scale decals to get them to fit a less-than-full-scale model.

The other thing too, with such large decals, is sometimes you can get overlaps or hairlines. What I mean is I once did a Reading box car with the large long diamond logo with the lettering inside. The long logo decal was made in 3 pieces and the yellow wasn't printed as opaque as I would have liked. So when I had just a hair of overlap in the decals (which you need to allow for settling and some potential shrinking after repeated solution applications), there was a noticable darker yellow line where the decals overlapped.

If you're doing this with masks created from painters tape, it could be done, but that yellow line between the silver and red will still bethe toughest. Plus, even if you find some kind of template you can use so you can cut the paint mask with size precision, there's still the prospect of getting it on the shell, both sides in the exact right location.

I've brushed a lot of things, but always small areas for detailing. Or things like window sills, handrails, window visors, vents, grills etc. which aren't worth the time to mask, and actually come out better by painting with a brush. A large flat area will be very hard to get to look right by brushing.

Charles Wood sells paint specifically for Lionel restoration (2343 Santa-Fe red in this case) The red Lionel used over the years did not change in patina much. Aging of course has some impact. So you will never get an perfect match.

http://www.trainenamel.com/

Testors silver matches Lionel silver really well unless yours has discolored (it sometimes does on origionals)

The underground rr shop sells nose and side decals

http://www.undergroundrrshop.com/products4.html

 

I did the same thing with some badly brush-painted postwar Wabash A and B units and a beat-up Preamble Express F-3 power unit.I stripped them down with Westlyes Bleech white,washed them with warm soapy water and lightly sanded down the surface with 400 grit.Then I primered it with Tamiya Neutral gray followed by 3 Coats of Tamiya Chrome Silver.I prepared a paint mask then sprayed on 3 coats of Model Master Guards red.I let the paint dry for 3 days then gave it a few light coats of Future Acylic floor polish .I then used Microscale #48-43 Sante Fe Warbonnet decals which takes care of the yellow stripes and nose decals.I then let the decals dry for 3 days and overcoated them with Future.They came out great!  

Those look fantastic - where did you get the decals? do you have a link.  

 Also i wanted to post my first shell thats painted solid red, how did you get your pictures up?

 The red on my shell looks fantastic and smooth - but now i need to go to the next step like you descibed.

I think it is at www.microscale.com just be sure to order the 1/48 scale version for O gauge!

Yep my Paashe Vl really does a good job when airbrushing!Gives you total control of the paint/air mixture resulting in great paintjobs!

Ok dude, whatever paint you're gonna use doesn't really matter so much to me as how you're going to mask off the lines on your shell. I've done two Sante Fe F3's in the past year with what I consider great results. I used regular old automotive pin striping to mask off the yellow and black lines.  This stuff, when warm, bends to the contour pretty good. If you're not already using that, give it a thought.

Here is the template for the war bonnet scheme(Along with the paints I used).I put down two stips of wide 3M blue masking tape and taped the templates over the tape with clear pack tape.I then cut around the template with a new #11 Exacto blade.Then I carefully pulled up the tape from the glass and carefully positioned it on the silver painted shell.After careful burnishing with the end of a paint brush ,I laid down 3 light coats of guards red.After about 5 minutes I carefully peeled the mask from the model.After it dried minor touch[-up was necessary.I then glossed it with Future etc.   

Here is the Microscale decal sheet for the Warbonnet scheme.  

The templates look good - Your ideas will help alot.

I tried the testors silver and it looks very close - I have some red that looks pretty close also.

 

 

Do you warm up the masking tape with a blow drier or something?

philo426 wrote:

I did the same thing with some badly brush-painted postwar Wabash A and B units and a beat-up Preamble Express F-3 power unit.I stripped them down with Westlyes Bleech white,washed them with warm soapy water and lightly sanded down the surface with 400 grit.Then I primered it with Tamiya Neutral gray followed by 3 Coats of Tamiya Chrome Silver.I prepared a paint mask then sprayed on 3 coats of Model Master Guards red.I let the paint dry for 3 days then gave it a few light coats of Future Acylic floor polish .I then used Microscale #48-43 Sante Fe Warbonnet decals which takes care of the yellow stripes and nose decals.I then let the decals dry for 3 days and overcoated them with Future.They came out great!

Thanks philo for this post.  I've read threads about this restoration process on plastics and the floor polish and always wondered why a clear coat paint finish would not be preferable.  Never did this myself, just curious.  What do you think?  Same question to Brianel.

Jack 

Clear coat vs Future coat - is this because the decals would peel up with clear coat?

Well,Future dries very hard and does not yellow so you can handle the silver and red painted surfaces as well as the decals without fear of damaging them.I routinely use it on all of my modeling projects and have achieved uniformly excellent results ,so that is why I recommend it.(Future).

I re-painted this postwar GP-9 in my own G,S&O(Gulf Southern and ohio)paint scheme.      

Here is a poswar shell that had a poor paint job.I stripped it down and re-painted it in Conrail Blue.The decals are from Walthers.        

nice work - have you ever come accross a good decal to replace the "made by lionel" on a santa fe?

BTW i cant seem to post pictures - how are you doing it? 

 

philo.....thanks for the pics and process.  The shells came out great.  Bet the SF job took quite a while.  Nice.

Jack

Thanks guys!I'm not sure about the "Built by Lionel" decals but I'll check into it.As for posting photos I'll tell you what I do 1.If you haven't done it yet install the software that came with your digital camera2.Go to Photobucket.com and join up(Its free)!3.take your pix..4.Go to photobucket and go to "My Pictures"after you sign in with your password.Connect the camera to the usb port on the front of your computer the pix will automatically load onto your computer(at least mine do)5.Next click on "Browse" and hit My Pictures"6.next you have to click "open"which will display all of the pics you just took.Put the arrow on the code under the pic you want to upload to photobucket and click it.7.Hit the next "Browse" box and repeat the process(If you need more browser boxes click on the need more box.When all of the pics are ready click on "Upload" the photos will upload.Then when they are done uploading click on the IMG line(The code will turn blue)Then go to the website that you want the pics on ,write your text and the right click the mouse and click "paste"The img code will load on the thead you are posting on.Then hit submit(Or Post each website has slightly different wording but you'll get the drift) and the pics should appear on the thread.Trust me it seems complicated but after a few tries it will feel like second nature.