General opinions on painting old Lionel Locomotives

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

I have used K4 on other projects and had good experiences with their decals.

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I just realized that I used K4 decals as part of a project to repaint and decal a dozen Walthers Mainline unlettered passenger coaches. I bought several sets of K4 decals for Monon passenger cars, red and gray and black and gold. These decals were excellent and so was K4 customer service. I highly recommend them.

Rich

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I’ve never repainted something myself, but I’ve also bought some repainted/fantasy painted postwar. What I have is common stuff and I liked the paint job on it(even if it wasn’t particularly well executed) and what’s more is I’d often get it for a fraction of the price of a “normal” one with average original paint. I’d view it as a win-win.

Honestly, most postwar stuff is common as dirt. Looking at it as both a collector and a user, I’d encourage you to be familiar with what’s rare and what’s not(ask here if you don’t know). As a general practice, I’d suggest leaving rare stuff in any condition alone, as well as really good condition common stuff. Anything else to me is fair game, although I’d suggest if buying for an eye toward repainting, look for rough condition runners.

Someone above mentioned the 736. To me this is a good one to talk about. It was one of Lionel’s higher end pieces, but they made a whole lot of them. If you find one new in box/unrun, leave it alone. I might even extend that to presentable ones with a few light paint chips, etc, but have fun and make something nice with the rougher ones. Yes, it’s going to be worth less than a nice/average condition original, but then it already was about at the bottom of the value curve when you bought it anyway…

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It’s certainly not a contest but this is probably the most repainted locomotive in my collection. It was of course all black as Marx created it. Then it was blue, silver and red a la Lionel Blue Comet. For awhile it was red and very Harry Potter and finally it went Siamese. It may have been Deutsch Bahn somewhere in there but I don’t remember.

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NICE! I like.

Well it looks pretty darn good! I never would have suspected it was a Marx engine, it looks so much like an import!

Here’s a Marx repaint of my own, a “William Crooks” 4-4-0 I’ve had since I was six years old. It’s my first repaint, I did this 30 years ago and didn’t start doing repaints again until last year.
This isn’t mine, but mine looked like this when I started:


And after I was finished:

Still runs and smokes too, although I rarely run it today. Maybe once a year for a few minutes.

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Nice job,looks great.

Flintlock, you are an artist!

Rich

Thanks!

Oh my, thanks!

I really like my Wm Crooks. I have better luck keeping them on the track. My Lionel Generals front trucks are especially sensitive to trackwork that is not perfect. The Crooks are so ugly, though, in their natural state. Especially the short stack ones which are all black.

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Pretty authentic sort of color scheme!

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Try the MTH “General” types if you get the chance at one or more. I’ve got five (It just happened!) and they’re all solid performers with great tracking ability.

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Thanks! (If you’re speaking to me that is!)
I patterned my paint job from a mid-19th Century model that was pictured on the cover of a railroadiana collectors guide.

Looks WAAAAY better Wayne! :+1:

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Thanks Becky! That means a lot coming from a master like yourself!
Honestly though doing the " C R R of N J" as individual letters with a dry-rub decal sheet almost gave me a nervous breakdown!