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Milwaukee Road F7's


Chuck
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Okay, First off I didn't where to post this but I'll be doing some custom work on these so decided on this forum.

 

I'm a big Milwaukee Road fan because as kids that's all there was in my home town. Illinois Central was a bit further south, C&NW was a bit North and the EJ&E was a bit West. Growing up all I ever seen was first and second generation EMD power painted orange & black, Sometimes a maroon cigar band F3/ 7 would come through. Most passenger trains were pulled by Milwaukee E8's painted in armour yellow & harbor mist grey...in other words the UP paint scheme. This was because the UP contracted with the Milwaukee to pull their trains into Chicago from Council Bluffs, Iowa and back.

 

Anyway I always wanted a set of Milwaukee Road F7's in the orange, black & maroon paint scheme. So I came across a set of USA Trains F3's in SF blue & yellow for the right price  :)

 

First order of business was to strip the shells of all paint. I also strip the shells bare off all detail pieces.

 

Here's one sitting in 91% isopropyl alcohol.

 

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Here's a shell that's all stripped & washed with warm soapy water.

 

post-23-0-59029400-1414440646.jpg 

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Then I had to mask the black stripe that borders the maroon with 2mm fine line tape that I found on eBay. I was going to use the 1mm wide tape but I didn't think our eyes would "see" that fine of a line esp. being next to a dark maroon color. I also taped for the orange at the same time but sorry as I didn't take any pics of the shells in tape. To be honest I didn't really have the time as I was under the gun to get these shells painted while the weather held out. That is up in the 60's, sunny with a slight breeze.

 

This is my first attempt at painting a 3 color paint scheme. I have some blowouts but nothing major...just some touchup with a brush but I have to order some more black paint first.

 

I also plan on painting say 12 USA streamline passenger cars to match but I'll have to build a rather large indoor paint booth for those. That'll be another topic  :)

 

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I don't know why USA Trains calls these F3's as they're more like F7's. F3's had 4 roof fans that stuck up in the air a bit. F7's had a bigger fan over the dynamic brakes where the USA version use the F3 grills. I don't know as I'm calling them F7's  :)

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Looking good Chuck, you're paint jobs are always excellent! :)  It's going to be a great and very unique set when you get done with it.  I'm looking forward to the info on the paint booth as I really need one of those myself.

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Chuck, FANTASTIC JOB,  and a great idea of making the stripes a bit bigger.  I believe in the art world that is called 'selective compression' even though you made them bigger to be seen better.    I will be following this one for sure,  please keep us posted on your progress.      nick jr

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Thanks all as I do enjoy working on trains as compared to actually running them  :)

 

Last few days were spent researching Milw. Rd. F3/7 diesel locomotive road numbers.I settled on using the numbers 86A & 86B as those were the last F3's to be built by EMD in Feb. 1949 for The Milw. The USA T version is the later F3 design and could be made into a F7 by simply filling in the dynamic brake grill area on the roof. Milw. Rd. designated these as class 15-EF which includes all F3A & B units along with all the F7A & B units.

 

The Milwaukee Road also had F7 steam locomotives that were Hudsons built by Alco but Milw. Rd. called them Baltics. They were designed for 120 mph passenger service and were the fastest trains in the USA scheduled for 100 mph service.

 

Anyway I made up some decals on my trusty inkjet printer though I may upgrade to a laser printer by the end of the week.

 

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Tried out some number board decals.

 

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Well I'm never going to use any Krylon clearcoat again! With inkjet printed waterslide decals they have to be clearcoated after printing so the ink doesn't wash away when the decals are dipped in water.  I bought a brand new can of Krylon Acrylic Crystal Clear and it f**ked up my decals! The can was spitting chunks of clear sh*t out!! I guess Krylon doesn't take the time to clean out their spraycan filling equipment!

 

So I'm back to using the little spraycan of Testor's Decal Bonder. :)

 

Can see the sh*t in the glare :angry:

 

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Can't believe those photos of the Hiawatha painted bus, never thought I would see anything like that today!   Also, never have seen a photo of that bulldog engine, who made that?

 

What a mess on the decals, hopefully not too hard to redo.  I just learned something about decaling and printing :)

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Krylon is really a crap shot anymore. I've had more problems with it. Don't use old Krylon, then spray new Krylon over it. They seem to change their formulas at will. Used to be my favorite paint. if I use it I test it first on scrap. I've had good luck recently with the Preval sprayer. Use your own paint, put it in the jar and has a spray unit. Nice fine spray, practice some, really comes out!

http://www.preval.com/what-is-preval

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Jerry, That's an interesting sprayer!

 

I never use spray cans for models as seems the paint is always way too thick to flow on correctly.  My local automotive paint jobber will mix custom spray cans in any color for $35.00 but will be filled with something like DuPont Centari Acrylic Enamel or some PPG brand.

 

I use Tru-Color Paint which I believe is the old Accu-Paint line.

 

http://trucolorpaint.com

 

To do the large scale train painting I use a regular mini HVLP spray gun that body shop guys use for detail work like door jambs etc. What I like about using this gun is it holds enough paint to cover an engine with a few coats before it runs out  :)

 

The black thing is a charcoal air filter and the bottom of the white cup has a fine mesh filter in it for straining the paint. Cleanup is fairly quick as I just run some acetone then lacquer thinner thru it. Final wash is with Wal*Mart brake cleaner in the aresol can.

 

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Meanwhile I stripped an old MDC coal hopper that had about 6 coats of paint on it and decaled it. Had some satin & gloss clear left over so I mixed them together and shot it.

 

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Also found this pic of a covered wagon with the crew posing. This is titled Feb. 1980...Last run across the Iowa Division  :(

 

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Been doing a bit of decaling and I found a set of replacement air grills made out of nickel. Enough to convert the AB set from the chicken wire to the vertical slotted style. The Milw. Rd. did update to this style on the real ones so it's all prototypical  :)

 

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I'll probably paint them stainless steel using Alcad paint.

 

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Olympian nose decal  ;)

 

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Fantastic job! Years ago I stumbled upon a website where a guy 3D printed a super dome roof and observation end to make the tail of a Hiawatha train. Can't find my bookmark but that would look great running behind these!

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Chris,

 

Thanks as I do plan on taking some USA Trains passenger cars and converting them into the super dome & skytop lounge cars. I'll be using brass for the mod's  :)

 

Well I did manage to get the shells clearcoated with the cold snowy weather we're having. Also hung the doors, windows & roof fans. I do need to make roof winterization hatches for the rear fans that are just infront of the flash boilers. Also been fitting the grills.

 

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Hi Thomas,

 

Nice layout and esp. the Milw. Rd. motive power! I think I sold you a GP38-2 about a year ago??

 

:)

 

hi Chuck, yes, it´s me   :)

 

Back in the days you told me about your projects .....  and now i´m watching the progress

 

I like it verry much!

 

greetings from Germany

Thomas

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