A prototype color comparison. I thought this color comparison might be interesting. My son had a baseball game at a Barrington field near a Metra train storage yard. So, the next Sunday game, I brought my wife's Canon Rebel XTi and a model to make some photos and comparisons. I used Scalcoat II Conrail Blue right from the bottle, diluted 50% with thinner for spraying. For the top orange, I used a 50/50 mix of Scalcoat II D&RG New Orange and NH Orange, also thinned 50% for spraying. I think the photos show that these colors are so close that they are indistinguishable from the prototype. Please NOTE that Polyscale and Modelflex colors are not the same, and will not be as realistic. (I tried them on my first 2 units!) Now, I am working to finish up the 1st Kato unit so I have at least 1 to play with on the tracks. Re-assembly will be challenging. Forrest
Looks good. With the rebulit units coming on line the past couple of months, IMO the blue is much "bluer" than the older units now. It really depends on which unit you try to color match. The units that are shopped by Metra for smaller projects are getting their nose headlight covers painted blue now too, instead of the silver.
I was thinking the same thing. Some of the F40PHM-2s have been serving over 15 years without a repaint. I would think the paint would have faded some over the years.
My first unit is mostly done. I finished the decals on my 1st Kato unit. I will probably put the 2 hand grabs on the nose of model as well as the light boxes. I can only do so much in an evening after 10 hours at my factory job. I used the number board decals from a Chicago and Northwestern E & F unit set from Micro-Scale. The numbers are clear instead of solid white, I think the prototype is solid white according to the photos. To get perfect number board decals, I will have to print my own, and put the white numbers on the black background. The law of diminishing returns is beginning to be felt here. Anyway, I have 1 unit to play with while I start the next ones. The white Scotchlite tape around the frame are MicroScale set #87-124-1 HO 1" & 2" white stripes. The 1" is perfect for 2" N Scale! I need to improve the masking process, the Avery label masks are way too thick. I will get some Tamya tape somewhere, I heard Tamya is very good for masking N Scale. I laid the paint on a little too heavy on this model, I wanted to see what I could get away with. Scale Coat II is definitely my favorite paint now! The Strobe light is from Sunrise, it looks perfect on the model. A Sinclair antenna would also be nice, I will save that for the next models.
@forrestgs @lashedup i'm creating a website dedicated to all things modeling metra and would love to include your pics of custom painted engines! all images have captions back to you and a website of your choosing. Let me know
