Correcting Lionel oversized smoke box door hinges/ scale MARS light install

Great projects!  I hope you will continue posting updates as you progress. 

 

I know that's asking a lot, but it is a very interesting set of projects. 

Yeah, I'll be posting updates as I can.  It's the easiest way to drum up work without actually advertising.  

 

 

What a great topic, and darn glad to see you posting over here. 

 

Looking forward to the updates.

Regards,

GNNPNUT

Well I don't think anyone can argue that this particular project isn't pertinent to "3RS."  

I too am intereseted in how you do this!

 

Most of the offending material is gone.

 

I'm pretty sure they have machines to do this crap now.    Making a scale hinge out of brass.

 

Wowak, please contact me regarding custom work jcooper@ucpcentralpa.org

 

Jeff, email sent.

 

They still need a smidge of final shaping, but that's the jist.  Now I have to fill those giant holes from the stanchions and redrill where the actual grab-irons belong, on the raised portion of the front.

 

The real fun part will come after I have construction done on all three locos:  trying to match the paint.  If I can't, I'll strip all the details off the shells (at least in the area of the smoke box) and paint those to match.   The Pennsy engines really should be more of a flat grey, not so metallic.

Wow!

Impressive that you don't have fear to rework a brand new engine.

Me either for more accuracy I don't care if is new or collection piece.

Excellent job, and thank for posting.

Andre.

Wow, now that is cool- would anyone here be able to form a new chassis for a MTH Premier SD70M or -60M? The wheel base is wrong and needs to be pushed out closer to the ends of the chassis.

Jeff - Try http://mattforsyth.com/

Paint match should not be a problem, since often the smokebox front was a different shade of graphite from the smokebox sides.

 

Nice work.

????

 

SP was the only road I'm aware of that made a practice of painting the smokebox front a different shade.

 

Most roads slathered on the same graphite on both the smokebox sides and front, of the smokebox was lagged like the rest of the boiler.

 

The smokebox front might appear a different shade due to it being an essentially flat piece of metal vs. the curved sided of the smokebox, plus with all the extra hardware to hold the door closed, the front weathers differently.

 

Rusty

Rusty makes a good point, but very few railroads lagged & jacketed the smokebox sides. The N&W and AT&SF come to mind with lagged & jacketed smokeboxes. Some railroads graphited/painted ONLY the front of the smokebox, while most other roads graphited/painted the while smokebox, i.e. sides AND front, all the same color.

Without the elephantitus hinges to locate it, there was a good amount of play with the smokebox door, so I wrapped it in styrene so that it will center correctly when I glue it in place.

 

 

Also filled the holes from the grab irons and drilled new holes in the correct location for the scale-sized stanchions. (I won't install them, OR glue the door in place, until after paint is done.)  So, basically I'm done with the K4 front until the M1b front is done and I can prep them both for paint.

 

 

The M1b was put together a little different.  For one, no glue.  I was happy about that. 

 

I wonder if the inaccurate wheelbase doesn't have a root cause, like placement of the motors inside the shell (i.e. the motor wouldn't fit in the shell if the truck was placed correctly?) 

 

Starting to putty up the plugged holes.  

 

 

Also, now that everyone got the smokebox paint debate out of the way,  does anyone have any suggestions for matching the factory paint before I go buy every metallic jar in my LHS?

Take that smokebox cover to your local True Value or Ace Hardware store, and have them match the color with their fancy computer "color matching thing".

Pretty sure that doesn't work on metallics.

So, you actually haven't tried it yet.

I'm also pretty sure my airbrush won't like latex house paint.

I thought quite a few folks have been using water based paints for many years.

It's been a while since I painted a house, but I still don't recall seeing metallic paint  at Ace.

Guess I'm not all that familiar with "metallic paint" used in the model railroad hobby. I've used Floquil and ScaleCoat paints, as well as industrial acrylic lacquer paints for steam locomotives. I also not have quite a few "water based" paints from the hobby shop, but can't say I have used them to paint our house yet. On the other hand I did purchase a quart of water based paint at the hardware store, specifically matched to "aged concrete", and once thinned a bit it works pretty well.

 

I must admit however, that I can't recall ever seeing a model steam locomotive which has been painted with "metallic paint".

Well I don't know what to tell you, but I'm holding the parts in my hand and there's metal flake in the paint.  Not giant bass-boat flakes, but metallic none the less.

Model RR graphite and silver paints definitely have metallic flakes.  Works the same with water- base, except that as I understand it, it takes a slightly different spraying technique.

 

Here is what I would do - capture some Floquil silver, some graphite, and some light gray.  Mix carefully until you have the exact shade you want, then spray some white card stock and let it dry.  Compare the dried paint to what you want to match.  Try it again - you will be really close the second time.

 

I think I would start out with white primer on your new part, then carefully shoot the mixed color.  Done!  Opinion.

I'm probably going to add silver to floquil grimy black until it looks right.

Well, I went out of town last weekend, and caught a bug, so I haven't worked on anything all week, except to lay a coat of testors modelmaster primer on the parts to see where I needed to fine-tune the putty-work, and like it does (only some of the time) it didn't want to dry.  (I swear I'm never using Testors primer again.)

 

So, the parts have been sitting under my desk lamp for a few days drying.

 

 

I'm feeling mostly better now, though, and going to be getting back to work on these.

First shot at color matching.  The shade is close, the hue needs to be a little more yellow.

 

Wowak,

 Your skills are amazing! You keep this up and you'll have your own little business!

I'm into the really meaty part if this job now, the MARS light on the Berk.

 

 

Ok, it's a pretty lousy picture, but I'm still taking all these pictures with a cellphone.  (still haven't replaced my camera since the Nashville Flood in 2010.)

So in the foreground on the right you can see the Lionel MARS light.  It's cast in one piece with the bracket.  On the left is the brass replacement, which is scale sized.  As you can see, the Lionel piece is oversized.  Once I starting working on this, it was easy to see why:  it's hard to fit everything into the scale-sized housing.  Also, the Lionel light runs the wires out the back of the housing and straight through a hole in the smoke box door.  That's not the way the NKP did it.

 

 

So I'd love to hide two wires into a scale conduit, but I'm not THAT good.  So one lead from the LED will exit the back of the housing and down to the bracket, while the other lead will exit the bottom of the housing and through the bracket.

 

That's not the only fun part.  To make everything fit, I filed the tip off of the LED to shorten it.  Also, the brass piece didn't come with a lense, but it was not big deal to mount the Lionel lense on a rod and chock it on my drill to turn it down slightly to fit in the new part.  

 

So that's where that is.

The real world has been doing it's best to interfere with my work, but I've got this one going the way I want it.

I still have to rebuild the hinges on the Berk but other than that, nothing left but paint work.  

Nice work!

Scale hinges mostly complete on the Berk.  You can see where I've filled the hole for the Mars light wire, and added 2 smaller holes that will be obscured by the bracket.

 

 

just thought you might like to see the detail on NKP #753 under construction (1.5" scale).  the Mars light platform is installed, but waiting on Jim Kreider for the light itself.  the Mars light casting is done, but the operating mechanism is still in the design phase.  don't forget the second Pyle dynamo added to support the increased power demand of the Mars light.

 

looks great.

cheers...gary

 

That looks great.  The Lionel model appears to have two dynamos and a generator.