06-25-2010, 11:08 PM
Robert, one of the guys in the modular club takes old plastic steam engines and details them out. He sands off all of the cast on piping and then adds new piping made of heavy brass stock or even stripped copper electrical wire. He then adds the hand rails made of the correct thickness of brass wire with brass cast stanchions, and details like whistles and bells from brass castings. When he gets done those old Mantua, Lifelike, Model Power, Tyco, or Bachmann locomotives look as good as anything you could buy for hundreds of dollars today, and I doubt if he has more than $25.00-$50.00 invested in any of those old locomotives! He adds can motors to them to make them run better and tunes up the drive and has some awesome locomotives!