A.T&S.F Tarpon Grey

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GN.2-6-8-0

GN.2-6-8-0

Member
Only able to Find Santa Fe Silver in the Pollyscale line of acrylics,When painting the smokebox front on Santa Fe steamers Tarpon grey is called for. Any Santa Fe experts residing here who know the correct color I should use or the correct color mix ?
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Who's saying it's supposed to be "Tarpon Grey"? I've painted a lot of Santa Fe engines in my life and never heard of that color. I've always used Santa Fe silver and it looked like a perfect match to both pictures and preserved locomotives I've seen.
 
UP2CSX said:
Who's saying it's supposed to be "Tarpon Grey"? I've painted a lot of Santa Fe engines in my life and never heard of that color. I've always used Santa Fe silver and it looked like a perfect match to both pictures and preserved locomotives I've seen.
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I saw this color mentioned on the MR. review of the 3800 class 2-10-2 on their website, Happy to hear the Santa Fe silver should be correct as i just ordered a bottle.

Thanks for the information.
 


When mass painting SF silver trucks or warbonnet bodies, I use plain ole Testors Silver. I weather all my stuff as well so never had a problem with it and it's cheap compared to the "RR" colors. ;)
 
Let me put it this way. If there ever was a Santa Fe Tarpon Grey, it must have been a about as grey as the PRR's Brunswick Green was green. :) Except for some Russian Iron colored smokeboxes, I've never seen anything but what I would call silver. There were some locomotives that had a more subdued silver, like Floquil's Aged Silver, but it certainly wasn't grey. With the usual weathering that built up pretty quickly on steam locomotives, it would be ahrd to tell the exact color anyway unles you are are painting this as fresh from the shops.
 
Just goes to show ya you can't always believe what'cha read.....why I asked :)
At any rate the gray color on this engine's smoke box and stack is then incorrect.
And believe me my engines tend towards med to heavy weathering once the base colors are corrected.....:rolleyes:
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Well silver, gray......after it's weathered it really doesn't matter if the base color was exactly right. Especially with medium to heavy weathering.

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I'm bringing this thread back to life for a couple reasons.

First, I got my very first BLI steamer yesterday. I took one in trade for a paint job I did. it's an older BLI Santa Fe 2-10-2 "Stealth" version. So off to the LHS for a Tsunami and speakers. Had a bit of a time figuring out how the tender shell popped off. About 100% of my steam was brass until this critter hit the front door, and taking apart a brass model is pretty easy. I got what must be a 50 page booklet for a sound system this model didn't have, and not so much as a parts diagram on the model itself :rolleyes: Sometimes you just have to wonder... I'm sort of conditioned NOT to stick a screwdriver between random places and pry to see what happens, but that's what I ended up doing. :)

Got the Tsunami in pretty quick, sounds good. No headlight for some reason. Not sure I'll bother with fixing it. Anyone else ever have that happen?

Gotta test run it at the club, but it's heavy enough, and those traction tires should make it pull pretty well.

In my search for answers to some of these questions I found a reference to Tarpon Gray. I've seen lots of silver smoke box fronts on Santa Fe steamers. Even done one or two myself. They are all wrong :mad:. I have talked with several custom painters and one or two serious Santa Fe modelers and found that the gray is prototypically correct, and should be on the smokebox front, the stack, and if you have a short strip of firebox exposed under the jacket (look for rivets), there too. The best formula I could find was 2/3 aluminum and 1/3 black. Scalecoat Graphite & Oil and S-10 Loco Black would work well for this. I have used varying mixes of these two colors for smokebox gray, as well as commercial colors from various manufacturers on paint jobs over the years. The SP did use straight silver on smokebox fronts, but this was for visibility at grade crossings (and after WW 2). Smokeboxes, stacks, and exposed portions of fireboxes were graphite. Research takes a little time but can be fun!

GN.2-6-8-0 said:
I saw this color mentioned on the MR. review of the 3800 class 2-10-2 on their website, Happy to hear the Santa Fe silver should be correct as i just ordered a bottle.

Thanks for the information.
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