NAILED IT! O Gauge Edition

Boys, men and trains are a no brainer. It's in our DNA. I also love to see more girls and women involved with trains. And I believe it's in their DNA too. It's just that some don't know it yet. Arnold

          that is pretty COOL !!

If she loves it, you NAILED IT!

Good job!  No... GREAT JOB!!!

Tom

I think you've captured the spirit very nicely!  Bravo!  

Mitch

Nice work - years ago, when my daughter was young, I did the same thing. She still has it - now as a display model.

@JD2035RR, are you using spray paint cans? Here's a little trick for you if you want to touch up that white overspray, that I've learned from doing so many repaints. Of course, it's better to avoid the overspray in the first place, but if you end up with it...

Take the pink spray paint and a clean/washed small aluminum pie tin (like the Walmart snack fruit pie type) and spray a little bit of paint into the pie tin. I suppose you could use regular tin foil or a piece of glass. I just find the small pie tins to be easy and disposable.

Then use a small brush to apply the pink over the white. You have to work relatively fast as the spray paint dries quicker than say paint from a bottle. If you have to, get another pie tin and spray some paint into that. Clean the brush with either paint thinner or you can use isopropyl alcohol with a little more effort. Using the same pink from the can will get you a better paint match than trying to find some hobby acrylic paint that is the same shade as what is on the locomotive now. Sometimes the acrylic paint appears to be spot on, but then dries slightly different.

I also wipe the nozzles of spray cans with isopropyl alcohol after every spray application, to help the nozzles from clogging.

Either way, hope your daughter enjoys "her" train engine.

Thank you guys for the kind words.  You're right that as long as she likes it, then it was a job well done - although the appearance was less than I was hoping to create.

My intention with this topic was to poke fun at my failed attempt, and challenge others to share their modeling efforts that failed to live up to expectations.  Here is an example from the baking show:

Any one care to share your "failed" backdrop paintings, waterfall scenes, foam carvings, weathering attempt, repaints, structures, etc?

Thanks for playing along.

Well, I always strive for perfection as much as possible. But here's a "nailed it" story of mine.

I was repainting a MPC SP type caboose into a yellow Lehigh Valley maintenance of way scheme. The whole thing was done, decaled and perfect... just awaiting a couple final coats of dull coat.

Rule one: Always put the spray paint cap back on to the can. This was my HUGE error.

So I grabbed what I believed to be a can of dull coat and started spraying away.

At this point, if you have to be familiar with the MGM Tom and Jerry cartoons, where Tom's eyes bug out as he screams (one of the few times those characters made a vocalization).

Well, that's what I looked like as I realized I was spraying PARROT GREEN instead of clear dull coat over my beautiful yellow caboose.

Needless to say, I frantically worked at getting as much of that green off without damaging anything. Then I had to do my little technique describe above, and touch up all the rivets to hide the green that wouldn't come off in those places. A lot of needless effort went into getting me back to one second in time before I grabbed the Parrot Green paint.

I did not take a photo of that. It was one of those little moments I care to not immortalize. But I was reminded (the hard way) about something I already knew. Though every time I run that caboose, I do quietly reflect on one of my major "nailed it" moments.

Brianel, good tip on touching up the over spray from aerosol cans.  I can imagine the frantic cleanup after the parrot green! Haha Thanks for sharing.

I just scrolled through your topic in your signature line, and I'm going to venture a guess that you don't have many more "nailed it" stories to share.   You do great work with those repaints and decals!  I have an awaiting project of repainting some Marx passenger cars into a Norfolk and Western scheme.  I was holding off because I couldn't find O scale decals that would fit, but after reading your topic, you point out that you sometimes use HO decals on the traditional size rolling stock.  It won't look so out of place on a Marx 3/16 passenger car.  Another good tip!  

JD, I haven't used these guys decals yet, but I am planning to. They have quite a selection of S scale decals. I'll put a link below. I'm not so familiar with the N&W, but I imagine their passenger cars probably had gold lettering. Maybe you could make do with lettering of the 611 tender decals for your passenger cars.

S scale decals are hard to find, but these guys have quite a selection, which would work fine with the smaller Lionel short 027 cars or the MARX ones as well.

https://www.tichytraingroup.co...91/c/n5/Default.aspx

For other ideas, go to the index on the left side of the page. Look for your favorite railroad, click the link and you'll see their selection of decals.