A few additions to my locomotive roster and a rebuild

[Trolleyfan]

Yes, you can remove the paint from plastic models with the baking soda and if you use less pressure you can remove factory lettering without removing the paint underneath. This way you can change the car number without having to custom mix paint to match the paint on the car. Oh yeah, starch works as an abrasive too, as does pumice, aluminum oxide, walnut shells, corncobs, coconut shells, glass beads and a number of other materials which you might not want to use on brass or plastic models (like silicon carbide abrasives that under the right pressure can cut through brass or etch glass).

BTW, I use a Paasche Air Eraser, model AECR to remove paint and tarnish and prep the surface for painting. The AECR has a 1 quart capacity abrasive container that comes in handy when you have a lot of "erasing" of car numbers to do.

Greg Melby
Seattle, WA.

[Kanawha]

This is some of the best loco repair and restoration work I've ever seen. :mrgreen: Looks great!

[LiveSteamer]

Nice locomotives

[tetters]

The sandblasting is done with a Badger 260 abrasive gun. More info here: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.badgerairbrush.com/Badger_260.asp">http://www.badgerairbrush.com/Badger_260.asp</a><!-- m -->

Oooo! Another toy! I may have to get me one of those!

[Wayne R]

Well time for an update on my 4-6-0 rebuild. The weather here has not been all that great. Sandblasing outdoors the last few weeks has not been an option. We have had a lot of rain and cold and worst even--SNOW. Way to early for the white stuff even for up here in the north country. :?

Sandblasing indoors is just way to messy without some sort of sandblasting booth to contain the baking soda. It flies everywhere and then it would look like it snowed in the house as well. :mrgreen: Even when I do it outside I still get covered in baking soda. I had remembered seeing an article on the net on making a sandblasting booth using a plastic laundry tub. After a few trips to the hardware store and $65 Cdn later I put together a sandblasting booth.

   

   

It took me about two hours to put it together and about 24 hours waiting for the plumbers goop to dry. I case anyone else would like to make on info can be found here. <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.letterville.com/steps/hines/">http://www.letterville.com/steps/hines/</a><!-- m -->

Now that I had no more excuses it was time to get all the brass parts for the locomotive cleaned up and ready for paint.

The boiler before sandblasting.
   


Wayne Reid

[Wayne R]

After about 30 minutes of carefull sandblasting and a good washing I glued the etched brass cab numbers on so it would have the raised cab numbers that just about every CNR steam locomotive had by the mid 1950's. Once the cab numbers were glued on the boiler was place in a jar of white vinegar for 15 to 20 minutes. The vinegar etches the brass ever so slightly and does a great job of removing any stubborn tarnish the sandblasting did not remove. I rinsed the vinegar off with cold water.

   
The result is a nice clean shiny boiler that look as good as the day it rolled out of the factory. All the other brass parts were treated the same way with the same nice clean shiny look afterwards.

Next it was off to the paint booth. Before painting any of the brass parts they get a wash in 100% alcohol just make sure they are clean and dried with a hair dryer. Everything was then given a few coats of True Line Trains warm black acrylic paint. I do not use primer when spraying black as it is just one more coat or two of paint build up that is not needed. With the sandblasting and the etching in vinegar and carefull cleaning the warm black sticks to the brass real well.

   
Pilot all painted up. The little white specs are dust from a ceiling tile I had to remove in my train work shop to fix a light. They will be blown off before I give the pilot a spray of Testors dullcoat.

   
The boiler all painted. The raised cab numbers had the warm black paint scrapped off with a X-Acto #17 blade and have been painted CN yellow #11. The cab window frames have been painted Santa Fe red as well as the shut off valve handles on the boiler. The smoke box has been painted with my custom graphite mix ( engine black and Santa Fe silver ). It looks shiny now but once I add the Testors dullcoat it will give it the proper flat look and the color will lighten up a little bit. CN used a very dark graphite color on their smoke boxes compared to US steam locomotives. The rest of the parts are all painted warm black as well. I will have to repaint the tender shell as some how I missed a small dent of the firemans side near the back when I did my repairs and it really showed with the warm black paint on it. I have it stripped and the dent filled and tomorrow it will get a fresh coat of paint. After that I just have to decal where needed and give everything a spray or two of dullcoat. Then I can reassemble the locomotive and tender and post some pictures of the finished locomotive.

Wayne Reid

[e-paw]

nice job, looks great.

[Steamtrains]

That's looking REALLY good....

My hat's off to you....

[doctorwayne]

Looks great, Wayne.

Wayne

[Herc Driver]

Outstanding Job! Really nicely done! My compliments!

[LiveSteamer]

Fantastic Job on the locomotive.

[Wayne R]

Well now that I finally got back home and found some free time I was able to finish assembling # 1402. I was away in Cochrane then Toronto and had my camera with me as well as my laptop computer but no locomotive to work on. :cry: I have been itching to finally be able to get it finished for the last two weeks.

I did not take any pictures of the reassembly as I was so happy to get back to work on it I totally forgot about taking pictures. Reassembly went well. I have not ordered a tsunami sound decoder for it yet so for now it got a Digitrax DH163 decoder in the tender. I did install the speaker box with speaker under the coal load. Once I have the sound decoder I will just have to remove the tender shell and the Digitrax decoder then solder a few wire from the sound decoder in place. A 15 minute swap.

I reused the factory gearbox and can motor as they both were in great shape and the gearbox ran quietly. Other than that it was just a simple matter of screwing all the parts back in place. My bottle of Microscale Krystal clear was just about empty and dried up so the windows will be done when my new bottle shows up this week or next week. I did not add any weathering yet but now that I have three locomotives to weather it will get done soon. All will be getting a light weathering.
The side rods have been given a coat ot two of Neolube. It is a conductive graphite lubricant the gets painted on and dries to a finish that looks a lot like the unpainted rods on a steam locomotive.

It only took about 100 photos to get a few I was happy with. I really need to learn how to use my Canon digital Rebel XS better.That and get better lighting for taking photos.

   
Engineers side.

   
Firemans side.

   


Wayne Reid

[Wayne R]

A few more photos.

   

   

   

I am happy with how well it has turned out. It runs very nice. For the healight I used a very small surface mout micro LED that fits in the headlight casting. The headlight lens is a M.V. Product lens. Instead of peeling all the foil of the back of the lens for the LED I just removed a small circular spot in the middle. This worked out well as it left enough silver foil so when the headlight is off it looks like it has a silver reflector and when it is on the remaining foil makes it look very real. I wish I would have thought of doing it that way when I did my other two locomotives. :x The coupler on the tender is a Kadee #58. The front pilot has a working coupler ( plastic ). I used plastic as the pilot is metal and if for some reason I decide to run two brass locomotives nose to nose I do not want them to short out my DCC system. The tender coupler uses a Kadee plastic box so it is okay.


Wayne Reid

[sgtcarl1]

Wayne, that's a fantastic looking loco!!! And there is absolutely nothing wrong with your photography!!

[tetters]

Four words.

Beee - U - T - Ful!