Finally found them! Altoona and Fort Pitt 2814r's

George, 

   Very nice. I have the Altoona car in O Gauge (non tinplate). I like them both in tinplate. Can you share the details on where you found them?

Tom 

MNCW posted:

George, 

   Very nice. I have the Altoona car in O Gauge (non tinplate). I like them both in tinplate. Can you share the details on where you found them?

Tom 

They are from the 2007 MTH Tinplate Traditions catalog (pre LTC). They were posted on an eBay auction.  I have a saved search for them.  One of each sold in Nov 2014.  Somehow, I missed them.  I have checked my search almost every week since.  These were listed with a Buy It Now last week.  The seller is a collectible toy shop out of Maryland.  I think these were the only ones he had.

Nice looking cars Tom!   It's always cool when you land the the item you have been looking for a long time! 

Very nice!! Persistence pays off!!

fantastic ,,,,,,,,,job well done,,,now drink up

I have the Altoona car and would love to get the other. Maybe you could share your custom stooges car.? Would  love to see it! Great finds! They are beautiful

JoeG

I had posted these on another thread, but here they are again.  

On thing I did not do was paint the ends black. The car I used had black trim, and I thought that would not look good.  I may have gone that route if I had nickle trim, but I did paint the doors black.

George

George,

  Pretty sharp & yuk yuk! Are they made by MTH, too? 

Tom

great looking cars!

The Stooges car was a custom made by stripping and disassembling a MTH Sheffield's car.  The Stooges decals were found in a post on this forum.  Stripping the paint from the MTH car was difficult and much harder than anything I tried from pre-war.  You need to get to clean, bare metal.  The rivet work was especially tough.  I even tried a stainless Dremel brush.  In the end, it took hand scraping with a metal putty knife after using a chemical stripper.  The painting was relatively easy, but requires light coats and following directions about time between coats. (You can wait a minute or two or 48 hours, but not 30 seconds or 2 hours). The decals also require a little patience. I stretched one, and deformed it.  Luckily, a spare set was included.  You learn a little each time.

George

Nice job. I saw the other thread, but wasn't sure if the Panther Brewing/Niagara Falls decals came with the same set?

Last question, did you need to spray on a clear coat to protect them?

Tom

I sprayed the car with a gloss coat after I applied the decals, but not to the decals before.  I did not get quite the shine I was looking for, but was afraid to apply more coats.