my father recently bought me the bachman spirit of christmas set for christmas. i asked for the metra. bless his heart. he did not realize i have built up a big n scale layout already. so he came over to see the layout and was amazed. he told me to paint that loco and passenger cars after christmas. and to put the magnetic couplers on those suckers. so any advise. i already have the magnets under the track in several spots. and i love painting. thank you for any advise.
Welcome to the forums.
Not just sure what you are looking for. If you are going to paint them and are good at painting, you seem to have the givers permission, so go to it. If your question is what paint scheme to use, my suggestion is to follow the theme of your rr if you have one. A favorite prototype or your own railroad markings both would work. If they do not fit your era, paint them to any road of your liking and use them as an excurstion train.
If you are asking how to paint them, disassemble and whatever else need to do the job, I’ll have to leave that to folks that have done it.
Have fun,
Richard
thanks for your help. i am fairly new to this but i was thinking black for a steamer. and passenger cars look almost western. do i have to buy magnetic trucks or can i just heat up the steel piece and drive it through the existing coupler. i have some body mount couplers and some of those steel pieces left over. thanks again. any pics of old time steamers?
Hello, Wirta
Would be helpful if you could post photos of the locomotives and passenger units that you have. If you don’t have one, you can go to photobucket.com and get a free account where you can upload your photos and then link-post them on forums.
Not sure what steel pieces you are talking about heating and driving through the coupler. You don’t need to heat anything.
If you are not familiar with changing couplers, it sounds like you could use a little hands on help. Maybe your local hobby shop.
You do not necessarily need to change trucks when changing couplers. Sometimes it is easier to change the complete unit and some are better quality.
Micro Trains has a conversion table for couplers at their website, to tell you what you need for specific locos and cars. Not sure if they have a tutorial or not. Google might help you if no one can come up with a specific site. Also, go to the right hand column of this page and scroll down to Search our Community and there may be some threads listed there.
Good luck,
Richard