# Uncle Steals Christmas from parents, again



## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

Hey guys,

Some of you might recall that last year, I painted a couple of hoppers for my nephews. Based on the excellent results (the boys actually put down their Nintendo DS's for almost 2 whole minutes), I am painting more hoppers for othern nephews and a niece this year. I also sold a mogul to a cousin but am giving him a complete train set, minus the power supply. 

Here's last year's thread, if anyone is interested.
http://archive.mylargescale.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=50060&SearchTerms=hopper

This year, I have am more standardized. Three hoppers go to the California kids (Dwight, I am growing some G scalers in San Jose). Those hoppers will all have silver lettering paired with their favorite color. As of last week, it was Red, Pink and Orange. Daylight, anyone? (Almost..). The other hopper is going to be more detailed and is going to my nephew Paul who is a super Thomas fan. He lives about 10 miles away, so we'll be seeing this car on our railroad again. This hopper will have yellow lettering with a sky blue overall paint job. I am thinking I need to outline his name with red so that it looks like Thomas the tank engine's paint scheme. (I don't know if his will get a "Candy loading only". Maybe something more Thomas related, like "thomas loading only" or ....?) 
Not much else to tell, I am using the Bachmann hopper car kits, which come fully disassembled, ready to paint! And at $25, these are a deal (with metal wheels included!)

The other two cars that are now complete are among the oldest in contemprary American large scale, a bachmann gondola and a B&O flatcar. Both came from a plastic big hauler set way back bought second hand at a flea market. These two were 'naturally' weathered in CT on my original railroad. Dirty doesn't begin to describe them. No way I could send these out like that for my cousin's two sons' first G scale train (and first electric train at that). I cleaned the cars on Friday, disassembled everything, but when it was all dry, there still seemed to be dirt on it. No time to scrub these things, so I hit the underbody with ultra flat black. Same with the trucks. Then, I painted the hopper and flat car in the lettering colors, applied the vinyl stickers, and put on the final top coat. The gondola is silver with red letters decorated for our late grandfather's cider mill. I figured that the real distance (3000 miles) would feel a little shorter with something lettered for the family. The flat car is bright red with silver letters, decorated for my cousin's railroad. (He doesn't know it yet, but the Fahey Railroad is about to be started South of London!). After all was said and done last evening, I was looking at the bright red flat car and realized that the wood deck should probably have been painted separately. Out came the masking tape, and I mixed up some acrylic paint (chocolate, nutmeg, and eggshell), but made sure that the colors were not well blended. Then, I brushed them on the deck. The result is a mixture of colors and tones that, to me, looked like how decking looks once it is dried in the sun. Ten minutes later, I stood back from the finished flat car and liked the result so welll that I did the same on the interior of the gondola car. In fact, I plan on doing this painting on all the open cars in the fleet, all three of them!

Photos will be forthcoming of the gon and flat car. When the hoppers are done, I will post them too. 

One last funny thing. Paul was over on Saturday, and I was running the eggliners for him. He was very sad that I was sending some trains out. He was worried that I would send them all out and there wouldn't be any left to run! I don't think he has to worry about that!

Mark


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## Ray Dunakin (Jan 6, 2008)

That's a really neat idea! I might try something like that for my grandkids next year.


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## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

Ray,

Thanks. Actually, it was really easy to do. These are not super detailed paint schemes. Really, it is just using stick on vinyl letters I got at the craft store used as masking.


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

(Dwight, I am growing some G scalers in San Jose).
Good for you Mark! We can always use more.  

BTW, Mark will be setting up his Holiday layout again this year. Several of us are going over to help on the Friday after Thanksgiving. We'll probably be boiling water and running trains by Saturday afternoon. Here are a couple of threads from last year's get-togethers... 

http://archive.mylargescale.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=49992&SearchTerms=Fun,at,Mark'shttp://archive.mylargescale.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=50246&SearchTerms=Fun,at,Mark's 

http://archive.mylargescale.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=50246&SearchTerms=Fun,at,Mark's 

If your relatives would like to drop by, I can let you (or them) know when additional running days are scheduled. Mark usually keeps the layout set up through New Years Day.


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## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

As promised, I took some pictures of the results of the gondola and flat car repaints.

First, the flat car.

This is how it looked when I started. Notice how dirty the underframe is as well as the original bachmann wheels that show lots of use. 










This is how it looks now:








Elevation view:








Some close up of the painted 'wood' deck. This was done with just acrylic paint, two kinds of brown and some white mixed in. I like the result. Kind of looks worn and used a little. Certainly better than glossy yellow or red.









Moving on to the gondola, I didn't take a before picture. This car was very very very dirty, on purpose. I had loaded it with dirt back in the mid 90s, and some of that was still in it when I cleaned it out. Since the cider mill was our family's common bond, it still means a lot to all of us, even though it has been closed for over 6 years. 









See how shiny the aluminum paint looks? I like how it sticks to the plastics used for these trains. In this view, the red letters almost look like they are raised. The reality is that the red paint is under the silver.










Again, I painted the wood decking to look like it has been well used.









On the sticker sheet, there were stars, so I thought, why not add some for fun? I put them on the ends of the cars. I also added my 'signature', a Millersvillanova logo. 









For a first train set, I did go overboard, but I guess that's OK. I read articles in MRC back in the late 80s about small things that can be done to off the shelf rolling stock to make them look a whole lot better, but it wasn't until Sunday night that I tried it for myself. I am very satisfied with the result and think it really enhances the overall look of the train. Adds a bit of realism, don't you think?


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## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

Dwight,

I'll forward that information to them. Thanks!

Mark


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## Ray Dunakin (Jan 6, 2008)

Nice! 

IMHO, doing _anything_ to "off-the-shelf" rolling stock is almost always an improvement.


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## dana (Jan 7, 2008)

Heres more ideas for the thomas fan A british cattle car out of a bman stock car 

http://www.gscalemad.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=1791


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## cudak888 (Mar 22, 2008)

That cider car is yelling "I know nothing, I see nothing..." 

-Kurt


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## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

Kurt, Nice! 

Dana,

Thanks for the link!! Interesting rolling stock.. 

I was able to get the four hopper cars painted and lettered this past weekend. Now it is a matter of assembling and taking the builder shots. The Thomas fan's car came out pretty nice. The colors do not contrast a whole lot, but he'll like it anyway, I am sure. I did put a little extra paint on his than the other three. But, that's ok! 

Pictures soon.

Mark


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## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

Finally had a chance to take a few pictures of the finished bachmann hopper cars. I used crappy American Accents (rustoleum) spray paint, but surprisingly, it didn't turn out too bad. Note, that all the road numbers start with 1208 that's for December 2008, the last number is their age this year. And like the gondola and the flat car pictured above, I included a small signature Millersvillanova Logo. These bachmann hoppers were easy to put together, and as you can see, they looked good behind the bachmann spectrum 4-4-0, even if the LGB knuckle didn't mate all that well with the bachmann coupler.

Pics:

Alexander:










Roxanne (no flash):










with flash:










Paul:









He's a big Thomas fan, so hence the light blue and yellow. Didn't quite come out as dark as Thomas, but I don't think that will matter much to him. Then again, he is kind of a stickler at 4 years old. Also prefers diesels. Have to fix that. Since he is the one that usually greets me at the door with a "Uncle Mark, can we run trains?", I painted his a little extra. 










Youngest is Jaxson. That's what he gets for having a couple hippy dippy california types for parents (kidding!! they're really east coasters that moved out there!!) They had to have an X in their 3rd child's name. Their railroad has a cool name, though "The Triple X". 



















Overall, this train is kind of a circus looking thing, but whatever, these were the favorite colors!! And I think they'll like them better than if they were all black and scrungy. I also preloaded them with hershey's kisses. They will be given out tomorrow when I see them!! 


Here's the whole train on a 'test run' in the basement. This is likely to be the last time these 4 cars are hooked up together. 






















I know these are kind of silly, and are not really kitbashes but simple paint jobs. However, I invested about $30-$35 per car (including the paint and the decals) and it was a lot more rewarding than going to the store to buy the latest Nintendo DS game (which I did for Sean and Liam!! ). 


Later,

Mark


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