In the past I have not done the best paint jobs on my brass engines or I sent them away to be painted, that gets expensive and there is always the danger of damage while in transit. This time I decided since it was a simple 2 color job, to see if I can get the results I normal pay someone else to give me. The model is an old PFM/United C&S HOn3 Mogul #21. She is unpainted and aquired from the collection of the owner of Kaydee quality products. I disassembled the engine and soaked her in a jar of vinager to etch the finish a bit. I spray painted the boiler after masking off the smokebox and stack with Krylon satin black, once that dried to the touch I hand painted the graphite smoke box using Testors alum/silver color paint. Looks good to my eyes, espicaly after weathering. I also spray painted the chassis with the drivers and rods removed, cylinder block and tender chassis/top. They they all went into the oven to bake at 180’ for 1 hour to cure the paint. I have never baked my models before, but know this is important for the paint to really stick to the brass model. The engine will be coming out of the over in a few min. Once she cools completely I will set about decaling her. Here is a pic of her before painting, I will have pics of her cooling on the cookie sheet pan I used to bake her on shortly. Cheers Mike
Looking forward to the results! That’s one sweet looking little lokie. And I agree with you, ‘baking’ makes the paint adhere much better to the brass. It’s always fun when the oven’s on and someone asks you what you’re cooking, LOL! (“A Mallet.” [:P])
OH NOOOOOOO!!! WHO PUT THE OVEN TO BROIL!!!. Just keep in mind the paint will be soft when it comes out of the oven and prone for fingerprints until it cools. I like cooking paints when I can but it can get a little stinky. Did you prime the brass before painting? Paint doesn’t like to bond to metals, but bonds to primers. Primers bond to metals as long as they’re etched and prepped.
I’ve found that convection ovens work well for baking. There’s a big industrial one at my job, and it can finish baking Scalecoat II in around 15 minutes at 80C (I used it on a weekend when no one was around).
Pics of both my C&S engine and a Far East Distributors 1910 era Mogul from thier Spartan series. I did the power pick up mod to that one, now the tender pics up one rail, and the locomotive picks up the other side. Both run OK with thier original open frame motors, atleast the C&S is getting a Roundbell Hobby motor upgrade unless someone here knows a good NWSL motor model number that fits in the tender. The FED engine might get a motor upgrade if I keep it, havent decided yet as I plan to stick with C&S for the most part. So if anybody is interested in that little girl, let me know. Still need to get a big MV lense for the headlight and hook up the light bulb. Enjoy the pics. Mike
Looks great! I painted 2 of my engines, plastic shells, was nothing like this. That’s a lot of work and sure looks worth it. I have never painted a brass but I learned a few things from this thread. Thanks for posting.
No problem, glad someone learned something. One thing that made these two models easier is the driver axles are not sprung like many later model brass engines and the valve gear is simple. No fancy monkey motion to take apart or sprung axle boxes to deal with. Now its time to find a new motor, probably a coreless motor. Mike
It looks great! Is it going to stay shiny, or will you be giving it a dull coat? I hope my Samhongsa 4-4-0 turns out as well. And I agree that simpler mechanisms are always better to work on.
A coreless motor would certainly run better than an old open-frame design. I put a coreless motor in my old Tenshodo GP20, and it absolutely crawls with the stock gearing. The best place I know of to get them is here: http://stores.ebay.com/microlocomotion His RPM measurements aren’t always accurate, but he’s still pretty dependable.
I emailed him before I saw your post, sent him the dimensions to see what he can do for a motor and whether he recomends a gear head motor or direct drive. Only have 11.22mm to deal with, might be able to squeeze another 2mm in height as the center of the tender frame is open and I can recess the motor down onto the truck bolsters if need be. She will stay shiny for a bit, but once my normal custom painter gets caught up, I will have him weather the engine lightly. I prefer my engines to be fairly clean with only a touch of road dust on the running gear and motion. While the engines are older C&S power, I twist reality to the point that these engines survived into preservation and now operate not only for the tourist trade, but to move local freight during the weekdays, much like the Harz railway in Germany. I hope to pick up a Lambert brass mogul one day and do up a model of the #9 that survived and has been restored again. P.S. the silver for the smoke box is acutaly correct if I go by the paint guide for the C&S, they list engine colors as black with a silver smoke box. Mike
I lost interest in the Marklin stuff. Since moving back home to Indiana and rejoining the clubs I used to belong to, I have wanted to build a different layout. Our small house doesnt have much more room than the mobile home we used to live in. However, I wanted to be able to interchange and operate with other local modelers. I can do that with the narrow gauge, either directly to those that model in HOn3 localy, or I have a reload warehouse at the local club that can unload from the 3foot gauge cars into standard gauge to be shipped to other destinations. The Marklin looked great, but all it really did was go round and round with no real purpose. I do plan to rearrange my room a bit and add a second section to the layout. The main portion will still be portable to take to shows, but I will expand some along the walls a shelf to add more industries and a yard. I bought a nice little Maxon coreless motor this morning before I went to work for the C&S engine. Cheers Mike
That’s a little charmer–I’ve always thought those C&S narrow gauge lokies had a lot of handsome character.
You said you’re going to weather it a little. Are you going to use paints or powders? Reason I ask is that if you use AIM or Bragdon self-adhesive powders, they’ll stick beautifully if you give the model a shot of Dullcote to give the powders ‘grip.’
