Questions from a total noob...

ModelRailroadForums.com is a free Model Railroad Discussion Forum and photo gallery. We cover all scales and sizes of model railroads. Online since 2002, it's one of the oldest and largest model railroad forums on the web. Whether you're a master model railroader or just getting started, you'll find something of interest here.


M

Mr.Grumpy

New Member
hello everyone, fantastic community you have here.

recently i dug my old train stuff out of my dad's basement with the intention of selling my HO scale stuff and cleaning up my N scale stuff and getting back into the hobby.

i have one N scale locomotive that i'd like to refurbish. i took it to my local hobby shop and it still runs but it's a little loud and sluggish. as you can see from the pics the body is in pretty rough shape and needs repainting. having never done this before, i thought i would ask for some help from you guys.


F72.jpg



F7.jpg



here are my questions:

what do i use to clean up the parts? rubbing alcohol and q-tip/brush ok?

what do i use to lubricate the parts? i imagine my local train shop would have a special oil for this sort of thing, yes?

what parts do i lube? just the gears?

i'd like to fix and repaint the body, can anyone direct me where to pick up decals for this engine? (not necessarily the same livery).

the horns (or whatever they're called, excuse my ignorance) are missing from the top of the engine. will i be able to buy replacement parts for this?

the gentleman at my LHS said this was an “F7” can anyone confirm or expand on that for me?

thank you for any help you can give me.
 
"here are my questions:

what do i use to clean up the parts? rubbing alcohol and q-tip/brush ok?
I use rubbing alcohol on the wheels. everything else I use and old artist paintbrush. that sucks up oil and dirt. Keep in mind Q tips can leave fibers behind.
I also have a can of air close buy.

what do i use to lubricate the parts? i imagine my local train shop would have a special oil for this sort of thing, yes?
Your local shop should have it. you will want to use the oil lightly. I use a small amount of gerneric oil that i get from RC RTR cars.

what parts do i lube? just the gears?
Mostly yes just the gears. Some wheels have bearings so you'll want a little on them. The plastic gears would work better with a very small amount of model rail road grease.
Some of the older units like yours has an oil access hole.

i'd like to fix and repaint the body, can anyone direct me where to pick up decals for this engine? (not necessarily the same livery).

If you paint your shell. be careful what you use to remove the old paint. Some "thinners/paint removers will melt the plastic.
I have not done this with my trains so I'm sure better advise will come along. Decals are made by http://www.microscale.com/

the horns (or whatever they're called, excuse my ignorance) are missing from the top of the engine. will i be able to buy replacement parts for this?
Yes.

the gentleman at my LHS said this was an “F7” can anyone confirm or expand on that for me?

I have trouble Identifying engine's so I'll pass on answering that, but it looks like my F7...
thank you for any help you can give me. "
 
Last edited by a moderator:


Rubbing alcohol does not harm plastic shells, I'd use that to strip the old paint off.

As for your engine, It's an F7A (The A designates it as a unit with a cab. There were cabless booster B units)
 
thanks fellas, getting the paint off will be the easy part. i'm sure 5 minutes in a light wind will do it.

went to my local train shop and it's moved! about a million miles away as well so will have to make other plans.

thank you for the clarification on the F7A designation. so it would seem i'm missing the B unit—that kinda sucks.
 
hamltnblue said:
I haven't stripped any loco's but from the pics I've seen you should soak it in a bath of 91% alcohol.
Click to expand...

Anything over 90% alcohol will work although the higher the percentage, the faster it will work.

You are not missing the B-unit. Not all trains ran with B-units. The railroads ran as many units as they needed.
 
I hope you remembered where all the parts go on that project, otherwise you might end up with a dummy (unpowered) unit by accident. I'd almost keep the shell the way it is, It almost lookds pre-weathered!

I have stripped many shells in 91% alcohol. It works the best with the least odor of any chemical I've used.

Your local hobby shop should have a walthers catalog handy to track down new horn castings.
 
Your best tool for stripping the paint is probably an old toothbrush. If it's tenacious try cutting the toothbrush bristles down to half their length, usually does the trick.

You may also want to look into replacement options for the motor. It looks to be in good condition, but newer motors with flywheels and whatnot are much better (especially if you plan to upgrade the unit to DCC).
 
yeah, good point glen, but i think i'll remember (fingers crossed).

i'll post my progress here, if there's interest.

this is my first rail project after many years of modeling 43rd scale F1 cars. it's sort of a way for me to get back in the hobby.
 


engine has been cleaned up and seems to run pretty good.

primer applied to body and it's ready for its new look.

Primed.jpg


9060.jpg
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hey Grumpy, :)

Looks like the old paint came off real nice and clean. What will you use to define the different color paint borders?
 
hmm, well i think the only way would be to mask and paint the different colours. i haven't quite thought it through properly yet but i will post pics of every step (if i'm successful, that is!).

first thing i need to do is find a match for the CN red/orange colour.

does anyone know if the round 'holes' in the side are meant to be windows (as in glass windows) or just holes? i've seen pics that give seemly evidence of both. what are they for exactly?
 
Mr.Grumpy said:
engine has been cleaned up and seems to run pretty good.

primer applied to body and it's ready for its new look.
Click to expand...

Looks good. Do did you use the 91%?
Did you use an airbrush to apply the primer?
If so, was it your first time using one?
 
i ended up using brake fluid to remove the paint. a little trick i picked up from someone on a model car forum years ago. the alcohol was working a little bit but the gray paint was being very stubborn.

i used a lot of elbow grease with a toothbrush to get the job done and then i had to pick some of the paint out of some of the crevasses. you'd think since half of the paint was flaking off on its own the rest of the job would have been easy but not so.

the primer (tamiya white primer) was applied with an airbrush. you can't really control the amount of paint that well directly from a can and for something so small and detailed you don't want the paint to build up and distort the details.

this is my first railroad 'resurrection' project but i have a lot of experience using my airbrush modeling 1/43 scale F1 cars.

the holes where the horns go were filled in with putty as well. i looked into replacement parts and the best option seems to be atlas but they require a $10 minimum or so i'm holding off for now and will add them in later.

decals have been ordered for the logos, etc. and i've done a test strip of what i think is a good match for the red/orange, i just need to head to my local model train shop to see how it matches up.
 
finally an update on this project...

sprayed the white then roughly masked and sprayed the orange (CNR red/orange from central hobbies):

F73.jpg




carefully masked the stripes using bare metal foil:

F74.jpg




sprayed the black and removed the masking, a little clean up was required but not too bad:

F75.jpg




applied the microscale decals and sprayed a light coat of clear flat:

F77.jpg


F76.jpg



next i just have to get the courage to do the weathering but i'm going to do some practicing first.

thanks for looking.
 


I must say, I was more than a little doubtful about this project when I saw your first post. You clearly are a much more talented modeler than just being a first timer with a model train. Very nice work stripping, painting, and decaling indeed. Now, can you get the old girl running again? :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.




Affiliate Disclosure: We may receive a commision from some of the links and ads shown on this website (Learn More Here)

Back
Top