We need a little Christmas!

Wow Chris!  Those look great.  Looking forward to seeing video of them running on the Christmas layout.

Great project concept. You do great work, they look awesome.  Enjoy them. 

Really great work, Chris!

 

Makes me want to go haul out my tinplate Christmas set, but I'd have to move about 20 boxes to get to it.

Chris,

 

Very nice!  Where did you get that Santa?  I would love to get one.  What are you using to pull the cars? 

 

Sunrise

Chris, what a fun way to bring those cars back to life! Good job

Thank you, Chris! Truly inspirational! Mike

Oh I love 'em - makes me smile! 

Great Job. I love those Christmas colors.

Good Day Chris,

 

Christmas is my favorite holiday!  

 

  Drawing by Michael Eby                                Modified/Painted by Frank Swafford  

Mine too Frank! Those F units would look very good pulling my Christmas cars!

Around Christmas you could post a photo of the entire train from engine to caboose. Your work is well done, and clever with the "naughty" and "nice" buttons.

Hey Lionel or Williams are you listening?. I'd get a set of those in a minute if they were offered.

Chris, if you really need a little Christmas, the Walmart here in Schrewsbury has their Christmas stuff out already! Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't it still officially summer?!?!?

 

Jerry

Wonderful job Chris!  The cars and added accessories look great.

Frank,

That is so cool!  Like Jerry, I would buy them.

Last year when Lionel offered the North Pole Express, many were a little disappointed, thinking the North Pole Central line was done with.  So, forum member trestrainfan put up a drawing for a F unit AA based on recent NPC offerings.  I saved that pic...

 

Yours and his are both awesome...I would purchase either set, if made.  With F3s and F7s having such a huge following, it would be a great fit for Christmas colors.

Chris,

Great work as always!

Can you shed some light on how you approached restoring the trucks on each car.

Also, did you have to source replacement or NOS parts for the missing truck on the first gondola?

Also, would appreciate some insight into how you went about painting/enameling the cars and caboose.

 

Thanks and agree with the rest on the thread, look forward to seeing a video of all together!

 

Woot! Christmas season is here...Well, at least it will formally kickoff the night they broadcast the Charile Brown Halloween special.

 

 

Dude,

 

You're getting pretty good at this restoration thing.

 

Yeah, I saved a few pics from that thread, too!...

 

 

but, let's now get a ahead of ourselves... This year's layout is going to be semi-permanent and going to need a lot of work since it's not going to be under the tree this year...

 

Although I can't wait for Christams, I will need some time to make the modifcations.

 

Thanks, Mario!

Beautiful work, Chris...brings new life to some vintage tinplate.

 

I'll try to cover the highlights; I bought these cars as part of a lot with the passenger cars being the focus on what I really wanted but those are done. I got the truck from a box car I left weathered and old which is serving as a home to a hobo camp on the layout."Still a work in progress" American Flyer is not the easiest to restore in the fact Most of the parts are riveted on which of course means every rivet has to be drilled out! The usual cleaning of the parts and painting of the trucks. BTW. the wheels won't come off the trucks easily because there are nubs holding them on to the frame which have to be ground off with a Dremal to paint the trucks correctly. I have a good friend who bead blasts the body's for me to remove the old paint. If it were not for him I may not have taken on such a large project! A coat or two of primer,2 coats of paint then I give them 2 coats of clear lacquer finish. Lastly I got out the rivet gun and rebuilt.

Chris,

Thanks for outlining the process. Sounds medieval at best. But, worth it in the end. Thank you for making time to outline the steps!

 

Chris (CH)