Stumbled onto this one for sale from a local gentleman. Missed the last one of these that Brasstrains had for sale. Factory painted, unnumbered(but comes with decals for numbers) Monon F3 in the “as delivered” scheme with the grey roof. Runs smooth and silent. Just needs working lights added and some window glass.
Nice snag, Mike! [Y][8D]
I’ve been enjoying acquiring select brass locomotives (mostly steamers) over the past few years; the only way I’m going to add those particular prototypes to my NYC roster. And most have run beautifully; requiring only a minor need of cleaning & lubing and breaking-in in order to run smoothly.
Tom
Yes, many of the road specific engines are still only the relm of brass. While the NKP Berks have been done, many plastic ones do not pull well, the diecast one with lots of bells and whistles I have concerns with the quality of the diecast after seeing so many models from that company and others from the far east develope zinc pest pretty rapidly. Brass will endure, gearboxes in them can be replaced if need be. Just getting harder to get them painted as so few do it as a service anymore. It really is becoming a lost art form to get brass steam professionally painted.
Yea, one of the pluses about modeling the NYC: Pretty much all black with only the need for decaling.
I have a few undecorated plastic & brass locomotives but have only painted a Highliners F2A so far, which is still in need of decaling. Trying to figure out how best to come up with the originally released “cat whisker” theme; something that isn’t commercially available from any of the decal companies. Need to pull that project back out and come up with a solution.
Tom
Custom painting may be diminishing for a couple of reasons:
a. Competition from the ‘big’ manufacturers adding more close to correct proto detailing.
b. A big turnover in paint supplies with old familiar paint lines and formulations disappearing; aging painters may not be inclined to invest the time and money it takes to get good with the new stuff.
c. Increasingly picky and entitled customers who debate each detail, find fault with every little decision, and want to haggle prices down to the nub. I gave up when a guy insisted on railroad XYZ models painted and detailed to represent power that never existed the way he was sure he remembered them. If he wants to proto-freelance details and paint, he can learn to do it himself.
I have also been buying brass lately. I tend to look for the factory painted. I recently scored a PRR H6sb factory painted. I already had a TCS WOW sound decoder on the shelf to go in it. I did paint and decal a K5s pacific after super detailing it from photos. The year before the stoker was installed (1937).
With patience and shopping around one can have a brass locomotive cheaper than the plastic version. With decoder, speaker, and tender plug my H6sb is still $100 less than a BLI H10.
Pete.
A have one brass loco, a 2-6-6-2 logging steamer that I bought at an estate sale about 40 years ago. A couple years ago I looked into getting it professionally painted and equipped with DCC and sound. The estimates I got were higher than what I would pay for a high end steamer with factory DCC and sound. I’ve run it in DC mode and it is a smooth runner but the only way it would ever make it onto my roster is if I can figure out what it would take to paint it myself and add a decoder and sound. About ten years ago I checked out what the value of it was as-is. My LHS looked it up and used with no box would probably have fetched no more than $150. Probably not worth much more than that today.
Nice find!
I have an A-B-A set of the Oriental F3 phase II (with the chicken wire down between the port holes) custom painted in the grey maroon and yellow Erie Lackawanna scheme. Bought them in like the mid 80s?
Been buying some brass lately as well, but specifically Erie / DL&W / EL cabooses. Somehow I believe that the road specific cabooses really add to the EL Scranton Division that I model. The Dunmore and Keyser shops built hacks were a mainstay in the Scranton area, and I’ve gathered a bunch of the Erie C300 bay window cabooses in brass.
The EL brass locos I collected years ago were due to not having plastic models available, and I don’t see a need for any new ones.
John, you would be supprised, any Logging 2-6-6-2 is worth $250 and up, PFM/United and NWSL did most all the logging mallets and they all have quite a following both from collectors and operators as the only other loco like that is the Mantua model, which is a scaled up narrow gauge engine. So not everybody’s cup of tea. Yes, getting a model professioanly painted is quite expensive. Labor costs money, as do the supplies and knowledge of how to properly paint the model. But once done, they are works of art and enhance any layout or display cabinet they are in. Here is my final buy for today. Got this at Train Central in Indianapolis, they have a collection in, mostly logging with several PFM Shays including a late run Pacific Coast Shay with the spark arrestor chimney and a 2 truck class C Climax. All are weathered like my 2-8-2 with the same pvt road name. They also had a nice Westside DRGW K27 that was nicely painted with PFM sound in it.
One of my brass acquisitions a couple of years back was an undecorated NJCB 2-6-6-2 Mallet:
While I’ve installed a Loksound micro, two SSS speakers (in parallel), and an SMD LED (firebox flicker) in the boiler, as well as tender lighting, I have yet to paint it. And I may never paint & detail it. That won’t stop me from running it in front of a long coal drag though. I’ll just imagine that it’s all black with white block letter. [:P]
Tom
I’m going by what my LHS looked up in their booklet. Ten years ago it was $150. What it would actually sell for on ebay could be higher or lower. With inflation it would probably be higher now. Collectors usually value having the item in its original box so I’m sure not having that would devalue it.
I have ruled out a professional paint job and DCC upgrade. The choices I have now are:
Sell it for what I can get for it
Paint and upgrade it myself. This would be done by disassembling it and painting it with rattle can primer and paint since I have never learned to use an airbrush. Then I would install the appropriate decoder with sound and hope I could piece it back together correctly.
Allow it to continue to gather dust on the shelf.
I’ve been exercising option 3 for about 40 years and it doesn’t seem to have harmed it any. Someday I might get around to trying option 2, knowing I would risk destroying it. Even if I thought it would fetch $250, I’m not inclined to go with option 1.
Poor paint jobs lower the value. If the cost of a professional paint job is beyond your hobby budget, its probably best left unpainted. The only real upgrade might be to fit lights and a modern can type motor, if it can be done to a professional level with proper mounting bracket and such. All of the above is my opinion, it is your model to do with as you please. If you can post pics of the engine, I can tell you which logging 2-6-6-2 you have and a posible value to it. There are a few places one can sell a brass model other than ebay as well. Many run their models unpainted so as to enjoy its beauty in natural brass, same for displaying the model in a display case when not in use.
Poorly painted for the STRATTON AND GILLETTE simply destroys the value.
That is OK.
-Kevin
As mentioned, I have not issue running my undecorated locomotives - plastic or brass - on my layout. To me having a “viable” locomotive spending its life idle in a display case or storage box is unthinkable.
Convert your 2-6-6-2 to DCC, John, then run it and enjoy it. [:D]
Tom
If I decide to paint it and upgrade to DCC, it means I won’t be selling it so devaluing it with a less than professional paint job is not a concern. I have no interest in running an unpainted brass loco, with or without DCC. If I can make it presentable by painting it myself, that’s all I care about. My heirs can worry about the resale value.
I have painted plastic diesel shells with rattle can paints with mixed results. I now know which kinds of rattle can paints work well. The primer coat will be the key. Putting on a thin primer coat that won’t obscure the fine detail will make or break the project.
Alrighty then. Keep us posted when you get around to doing that, John. I would enjoy seeing it.
John.
I think environment where it’s painted is probably just as or more important. I’ve painted things without a primer coat that have turned out grand. I harken back to my childhood building scale model cars and trucks. Won a few ribbons and trophies with them. I was forbidden and still am from spray painting in the house. I have to spray (airbrush or rattle can) in the great outdoors. Timing the unpredictable weather is the hardest. I once did a pair of resin outside braced boxcars with a rattle can. To my horror it seems that a species of tiny black flies loved the paint job so much that they decided to land and get stuck in it. There were hundreds of them. Did you ever try to strip and sand an outside braced wood boxcar? I airbrushed my K5s with Scalecoat paint and baked it on in an old toaster oven outside and it came out perfect. Bare brass paints nicely if scrubbed with soap and water using a fine Scotchbright pad to key the brass. Most unpainted brass already has a clear lacquer coating that can take paint too.
Pete.
There are some great online “how to” videos on how to prep and paint brass models. If you Scalecoat or similar out of a rattle can those have a much finer spray than say, a can of Rustoleum from the hardware store that will lay down the paint way to heavy. Brass needs to be baked in the oven at no more than 170’ F or darn close to that or you will turn it back into a “kit”. I can highly recommend looking into an airbrush. I got the Harbor Freight one for $16 thats a clone of a Pasche and I used cans of propellent for several years till I got good deal on a Badger airbrush compressor. Its all more than paid for itself thru the years, the compressor is handy for air testing my live steam models in O and G scale to! Some pics will help on advice for a new motor to make the model more DCC friendly, the open frame motors can be isolated by insulating both motor brushes(not the whole darn motor normally), but many times the amp draw is border line for many decoders. A modern can motor, such as a Canon, Maxon, Mashima, Sagami ect will run smoother and draw way less amps.
I’ve already tried three different airbrushes including Pacshe and Badger and just never could get the hang of them and am not going to try a fourth. It’s rattle cans for me. I believe priming is the way to go, otherwise I risk having a the finish flake off. I’ve used paint+primer brands and they do well on plastic but I’m not sure I would try them on brass unless I could find something to test it with first. Maybe the underside of the tender would be a good candidate for a test spray.
I won’t be doing this any time soon because I have more pressing projects to deal with. Probably at least a year away if not more.
Microscale offered the “cat whisker” scheme in set 87-49, and I lettered a number of NYC diesels for a friend.
I still have some of the lettering left, Tom, and would be glad to send it to you if you can somehow contact me with a mailing address. My PM feature still accepts (I think) messages, but I cannot send messages using it.
I’ll shoot some photos of what I have a little later, so you can decide if it’s enough to be of use. What I have appears to include 8 sets of cat whiskers, 20 NYC red heralds, 6 pairs of NEW YORK CENTRAL lettering, and quite a few strips of numbers for the number boxes, and some small white numerals. There’s also one piece of wide white-bordered grey striping, although I doubt it’s enough for even one side of a diesel.
If Microscale no longer offers that decal set, I think that you could send a piece of the wide stripe to Circus City Decals, and they could produce a very exact match of that striping, at a not-too-onerous cost.
As for brass locomotives, especially steam, I’d be more interested in the unpainted versions. All of the painted ones that I’ve bought were poorly-done, and I stripped them completely.
A couple of friends, for whom I still do custom painting, often buy undecorated or poorly decorated locos due to their more reasonable cost, and it’s not much of a big deal to strip the poorly-painted ones.
One particular model, a large CNR steamer, was painted by a well-known modeller and professional painter, and it must have been one of his earliest ones - I could have done better using a roller.
If you really think that a steam locomotive is nothing but black, a simple rat