I bought a few extra shells from ebay that I want to paint. I have a background in automotive painting. Just wanted to see if anyone has tips or good ideas for a nice outcome.
I want to duplicate a F3 Santa Fe paint job over an existing one that is in poor condition. I am working off some cheap ebay shells that won’t be a huge loss if problems occur.
Thanks
Be sure to scrub the shells in some soapy water. Use a toothbrush to get in the louvres and cast on details. Let air dry, then avoid picking it up with bare hands.
What kind of paints are you using?
For my first test shell i used valspar spray can - it actually turned out really nice - i used soapy water and wetsanded all the rough areas - its a shell thats i got for 99cents on ebay and its a good practice item. Actually looks good enough to use except its solid red with no decals or other paint.
I am searching for a paint that matches the santa fe silver exactly so i can paint a B unit shell that is the wrong color. I am open to using a airbrush as i am pretty good with automotive painting.
Here is one source of paint.
Painting- I would say using an airbrush or spray can would be the best bet… using a brish is a big no no in most cases
Silver- A few companys make reproduction paints so I think the silver should be easy to find… if not you could have an automotive store mix a matching paint.
Alex
As one who has done what could conservatively be called an extensive amount of repainting, you want to do everything right. Including a good paint. But what scares me about this particular project is the paint masking. Man, that’ll be a tough job for certain to get it right.
I’m not a big Santa Fe fan, as least as far as repainting goes, so I don’t know if there’s a Warbonnet set of decals in O scale. Microscale would be one website to check. But even though the Lionel F-3 is pretty darn close to scale, there’s times when you have to fiddle and carefully trim full O scale decals to get them to fit a less-than-full-scale model.
The other thing too, with such large decals, is sometimes you can get overlaps or hairlines. What I mean is I once did a Reading box car with the large long diamond logo with the lettering inside. The long logo decal was made in 3 pieces and the yellow wasn’t printed as opaque as I would have liked. So when I had just a hair of overlap in the decals (which you need to allow for settling and some potential shrinking after repeated solution applications), there was a noticable darker yellow line where the decals overlapped.
If you’re doing this with masks created from painters tape, it could be done, but that yellow line between the silver and red will still bethe toughest. Plus, even if you find some kind of template you can use so you can cut the paint mask with size precision, there’s still the prospect of getting it on the shell, both sides in the exact right location.
I’ve brushed a lot of things, but always small areas for detailing. Or things like window sills, handrails, window visors, vents, grills etc. which aren’t worth the time to mask, and actually come out better by painting with a brush. A large flat area will be very hard to get to look right by brushing.
Charles Wood sells paint specifically for Lionel restoration (2343 Santa-Fe red in this case) The red Lionel used over the years did not change in patina much. Aging of course has some impact. So you will never get an perfect match.
Testors silver matches Lionel silver really well unless yours has discolored (it sometimes does on origionals)
The underground rr shop sells nose and side decals
I did the same thing with some badly brush-painted postwar Wabash A and B units and a beat-up Preamble Express F-3 power unit.I stripped them down with Westlyes Bleech white,washed them with warm soapy water and lightly sanded down the surface with 400 grit.Then I primered it with Tamiya Neutral gray followed by 3 Coats of Tamiya Chrome Silver.I prepared a paint mask then sprayed on 3 coats of Model Master Guards red.I let the paint dry for 3 days then gave it a few light coats of Future Acylic floor polish .I then used Microscale #48-43 Sante Fe Warbonnet decals which takes care of the yellow stripes and nose decals.I then let the decals dry for 3 days and overcoated them with Future.They came out great! 
Those look fantastic - where did you get the decals? do you have a link.
Also i wanted to post my first shell thats painted solid red, how did you get your pictures up?
The red on my shell looks fantastic and smooth - but now i need to go to the next step like you descibed.
I think it is at www.microscale.com just be sure to order the 1/48 scale version for O gauge!
Yep my Paashe Vl really does a good job when airbrushing!Gives you total control of the paint/air mixture resulting in great paintjobs!
Ok dude, whatever paint you’re gonna use doesn’t really matter so much to me as how you’re going to mask off the lines on your shell. I’ve done two Sante Fe F3’s in the past year with what I consider great results. I used regular old automotive pin striping to mask off the yellow and black lines. This stuff, when warm, bends to the contour pretty good. If you’re not already using that, give it a thought.
Here is the template for the war bonnet scheme(Along with the paints I used).I put down two stips of wide 3M blue masking tape and taped the templates over the tape with clear pack tape.I then cut around the template with a new #11 Exacto blade.Then I carefully pulled up the tape from the glass and carefully positioned it on the silver painted shell.After careful burnishing with the end of a paint brush ,I laid down 3 light coats of guards red.After about 5 minutes I carefully peeled the mask from the model.After it dried minor touch[-up was necessary.I then glossed it with Future etc. 
Here is the Microscale decal sheet for the Warbonnet scheme. 
The templates look good - Your ideas will help alot.
I tried the testors silver and it looks very close - I have some red that looks pretty close also.
Do you warm up the masking tape with a blow drier or something?
Thanks philo for this post. I’ve read threads about this restoration process on plastics and the floor polish and always wondered why a clear coat paint finish would not be preferable. Never did this myself, just curious. What do you think? Same question to Brianel.
Jack
Clear coat vs Future coat - is this because the decals would peel up with clear coat?
Well,Future dries very hard and does not yellow so you can handle the silver and red painted surfaces as well as the decals without fear of damaging them.I routinely use it on all of my modeling projects and have achieved uniformly excellent results ,so that is why I recommend it.(Future).
I re-painted this postwar GP-9 in my own G,S&O(Gulf Southern and ohio)paint scheme. 
