This isnothing earth shatteringly important, but a nice little project that worked out well.
A previous thread had spoken of the death of "plan jane" cars in O-gauge, with every manufacturer offering plenty of exotics, Eldorados, Rolls, etc. I agree and its a problem for me. I want a normal everyday distribution of cars in the downtown areas of my layout, but I have way too many Caddies and XK-120s and not nearly enough plain, unmemorable sedans, etc.
Before Christmas I found these two nice Solido models - '48 Chrysler Windsor sedan, '50 Chevy Sedan, on Diecast Direct - unfortunately both were bright red with with Coca Cola emblems. I bought them anyway. I managed to get the Coca Cola emblems off with alcohol and Q-tips without damaging the paint surface, but red is not a "plain jane" color so I disassembled both entirely and repainted both using rattle cans from Ace Hardware. I did not prime or "prepare"the surface of either car (beyond dusting well). I let them dry three days and then cooked them at 170 deg or so in a convenction oven for six hours to harden the paint (try this on something inexpensive first, I won't guarrantee it will work every time). Reassembled, they are splendid models. The Lincoln, in particular, looks factory quality paint.
In the lower photo (with flash) you can see something that worked out well that I did just before reassembling the Chevy. I used a felt tip pen to make the upholstery two-tone, in something of the pattern it would have been. Looks good, even down to a nice "vinyl" shine.
Incidently, the Solido '50 Chevy is a great body to convert to Superstreets (lower photo) I have two factory-painted taxi bodies of this model fitted to shorted vintage truck chassis.
