I recently purchased an IHC Santa Fe 2-10-2 locomotive on Ebay.
Price was right, but the picture displayed was of an all black locomotive
When it arrived, the smoke box is silver, but I don’t recall ever seeing any
any silver colored smoke boxes on full scale locomotives or am I incorrect,
and were they common?
TheK4Kid
IIRC, the Silver colored Smokeboxes were painted with a high temp Aluminum paint. It was also common to “Paint” the Smokeboxes and Fireboxes with a mixture of oil and graphite, which could have a dark silver or grey color.
Doug
I wouldn’t say silver smoke box fronts were typical but they were common. It was the usual treatment of Southern Pacific steam locomotives and many of its early diesel’ ends at least during the middle part of the twentieth century. I’ve seen pictures of similar schemes on locomotives of other railroads.
Mark
As others have already indicated, “silver-painted” smoke boxes on locomotives were not something unusual, as one form or another of heat resistant paint was necessary to coat this area. However…I’d have to say that the typical model representation of this coating is usually not very accurate, unless perhaps one assumes the loco has just emerged from the paintshop.
Most steam locomotive photographs show the smoke box as dark, particularly on top. Many roads used an oil and graphite, or similar coating, that was relatively dark to begin with and even those painted a more “silvery” color quickly gained a dark coating of cinders and smoke particles while on the road, with only the underbelly of the smoke box retaining any significant evidence of a silvery tone for any length of time.
On scale models the silver color of the smoke box is usually way over done. It is usually much more appropriate and typical to have the smoke painted relatively dark and in cases where it is so dark as to be similar in hue to the rest of the boiler, it should be made to appear very flat and dull in luster.
Below is a link to an example showing the more common appearance of the smoke and firebox hues of an “in-service” locomotive.
http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/rdg3016sa.jpg
CNJ831
There was a recent discussion on this. It was common practice to coat the uninsulated parts of the boilers with a mixture of graphite powder and oil to prevent corrosion. This mixture creates a dull silver or gray color. It was unnessesary to insulate and jacket the smoke box and fire box, but these sufaces got too hot to hold the paints around durring the majority of the steam era, so thats where the graphite mixture comes in.
Some railroads insulated and jacket the entire boiler including the smoke and fire boxes, which allowed them to paint the entire locomotive.
An example of a jacketed smoke box would be MLW 261. Notice however that the fire box is not jacketed and is a silver color. (probably a modern high temp paint instead of the graphite mixture used in the steam era)
A non jacketed example. The rivets visable from the boilers construction make it clear that it is uninsulated. 
Thanks guys for the information.
I went back and edited my post. My spelling was bad! LOL!
I was pretty tired just before bedtime when I posted this.
So I corrected my spelling.I guess I can possibly paint the smoke box, but taking the engine aprat will be a hassle.
I may find someone to do it here locally.
I don’'t want to do it with a brush, it just won’t look right.
TheK4Kid
Get yourself some NeoLube from MicroMark. It is graphite suspended in an alcohol base. It works great to replicate the graphite color on smoke boxes.
I also use it to weather side rods and the firebox.
As stated above, it wasn’t really silver at all…
Hi Fellas !
It doesn’t matter anymore anyway.
I test ran it, brand new out of the box, it rolled three feet and the circuit board
in the tender smoked, and it stopped, and is no longer operable.I sent the seller on Ebay a message, and will wait to see his reaction.
It’s NJTrainSales if anyone has ever dealt with them.
TheK4Kid