Brass Frisco 4-8-2 Paint Redo and DCC Sound

[ACL1504]

The Frisco, St. Louis - San Francisco Rwy, light Mountain 4-8-2 was built by Baldwin. The Frisco owned about 30 of this design. Frisco had a flair for the cleanliness, gold stripping and polished steel trim. The high mounted air tanks were not applied to all of the 1500 class but the ones that had them sure looked special.

This wasn't a very expensive loco having a retail of $75.00 in 1968. PFM imported 500 of these Toby built models that same year. Back then, Toby was like a PFM Crown in the mid to late 1970's. The loco soon became a best seller and demanded a high secondary market value of around $800.00 to $1,000.00 in 1998. Maybe this was due to the early years of Ebay, I'm not sure. I paid around $450.00 for mine in 1975. However, in 2002, one unpainted version sold for $1,100.00 on Ebay!

Back in my early years of painting brass, I thought everything needed to be flat so this loco was no exception. I've learned alot about repairing and painting brass over the past 35 years and I plan to apply some of that knowledge to upgrade and clean up this little jem. The four photos below show you the loco as it was this afternoon.

fr1.JPG (118.45 KiB) Viewed 161 times

fr2.JPG (108.1 KiB) Viewed 161 times

fr3.JPG (91.34 KiB) Viewed 161 times

fr4.JPG (93.56 KiB) Viewed 161 times

Continued post to add more pictures

[friscomike]

Howdy,

You've got great taste in locomotives, of course. I may not be prejudiced about it. LOL. I haven't tried putting the Doric stripping on the 1500 class, but have tried on a diminutive 4-4-0. It was a failure. I couldn't get the stripes straight. That was 10 years ago, so maybe I should try again.

Beautiful locomotive. Thanks for the post.

Best,
mike

[ACL1504]

In upgrading this loco, I've got several things in mind to make it look and run better.

I plan to install a Tsunami DCC sound decoder and I'll need to install the appropriate sized Sagami can motor to get the best operation out of the loco. In one of their heavy steam decoders, Tsunami has a 1500 Class Frisco Steam whistle. So, you know what I'll be installing in this one.

I'm not happy with my silver smoke box and plan to redo/repaint it in a dull dark grey graphite looking box like on the 1522. So the silver smoke box has to go. I'll need to make a special mix of Scalecoat Black and Graphite for this color. The cab roof red looks more pink to me so that has to go also. I'll redo this in Scalecoat Oxide Red. The locomotive wheels all need white tires instead of the all black look. The main and side rods, the eccentric crank and crank rods all need to be stripped of the black paint so they can shine once again.

I need to install a front coupler, paint the cab windows red, paint the engineer and fireman's arm rest in a leather color, install a crew in the cab and install fire box lights. However, the most important painting I need to do is to paint a semi-gloss coat on the entire loco in keeping with the Frisco's great looking steamers and the shiny jackets. Here are three additional photos before I start the disassembly process.

fr5.JPG (189.11 KiB) Viewed 156 times

fr6.JPG (103.91 KiB) Viewed 156 times

fr7.JPG (110.32 KiB) Viewed 156 times

In the next post, I'll start the tear down process.

[ACL1504]

Howdy,

You've got great taste in locomotives, of course. I may not be prejudiced about it. LOL. I haven't tried putting the Doric stripping on the 1500 class, but have tried on a diminutive 4-4-0. It was a failure. I couldn't get the stripes straight. That was 10 years ago, so maybe I should try again.

Beautiful locomotive. Thanks for the post.

Best,
mike

Frisco Mike,

Thanks for the on the loco, very much appreciated. I appreciate you stopping by for a visit and posting a comment.

I thought this may get your attention. I've been meaning to do this post for the past several months but have been busy with other projects.

The tender stripes were very difficult to do and I went through two sets before getting it right. I never want to do it again either. I never knew they were referred to as Doric stripes.They were just a tad bit more difficult than doing a set of SRR Cresent Limited decal stripes.

This is a great loco and runs like a swiss watch and that's with the old Pittman P-70 open frame motor.

Mike, I think you'll be pleased with the finished loco.

Tom

[LongHornCaddy]

Excellent Tom! I bet Frisco Mike dreamed about this one last night!!



Cruisin,

Long Horn Caddy

[ACL1504]

Excellent Tom! I bet Frisco Mike dreamed about this one last night!!

Cruisin,

Long Horn Caddy

Thanks Caddy, I appreciate it very much. Yes, Mike probably did dream about it!

Tom

[bparrish]

Regarding the silver smoke box. Before you commit to repainting the locomotive, try this. There is nothing to loose as you may be repainting in anyway. Make a solution of paint thinner (not lacquer thinner or Floquil thinner) and mix in a small amount of black or dark brown umber tinting concentrate from a paint store. If you can find a paint supplier who will do this, take in a bunch of baby food jars or the like and ask for a part of an ounce of the really good earth tones. These things are so concentrated that an ounce will last forever. Mix a bit in a small amount of thinner and put it on the smoke box. Allow it to set for a time and then wipe off with a Kleenex. It will leave color around rivets and other surface edges. For the first hour or so it is soluble in itself so straight paint thinner will remove it if too dark. If not enough wait several hours for it to set and then apply again until you get it as dark as you want. It will leave you with a really nasty looking silver that looks well aged and soot stained. It will take the bright shinny "new" right out of it.

see ya

Bob

[ACL1504]

Regarding the silver smoke box. Before you commit to repainting the locomotive, try this. There is nothing to loose as you may be repainting in anyway. Make a solution of paint thinner (not lacquer thinner or Floquil thinner) and mix in a small amount of black or dark brown umber tinting concentrate from a paint store. If you can find a paint supplier who will do this, take in a bunch of baby food jars or the like and ask for a part of an ounce of the really good earth tones. These things are so concentrated that an ounce will last forever. Mix a bit in a small amount of thinner and put it on the smoke box. Allow it to set for a time and then wipe off with a Kleenex. It will leave color around rivets and other surface edges. For the first hour or so it is soluble in itself so straight paint thinner will remove it if too dark. If not enough wait several hours for it to set and then apply again until you get it as dark as you want. It will leave you with a really nasty looking silver that looks well aged and soot stained. It will take the bright shinny "new" right out of it.

see ya

Bob

Bob,

Thanks for stopping by and posting a comment. Your process sounds very interesting and I'll give it a try but not on this loco. I want to experiment and get familiar with the process prior to trying it on the Frisco. I can't afford to mess this one up! I have an old one I'll try it on though.

Tom

[ACL1504]

My man cave time has been limited but I did find a few times to work on the loco.

First, I took my time when taking it apart. Remember, It was my intention to spray paint a semi-gloss on the loco and not do a total repaint job. Once I got the loco apart I started the work. I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread that I wanted to paint the driver tires white including the pilot, trailing and tender wheels. I watched three DVD's and referenced all my books and found not one picture where the Frisco had white tires on any of the 1500 class. It appears though that the Frisco was diligent in keeping their steam power clean. At least on this class, 4-8-2. So, the tires all stayed black.

disassembled loco

fr8.JPG (95.13 KiB) Viewed 70 times

I stripped the main and side rods, the valve gear and the eccentric crank rods. I hand painted the steam chest cylinder heads with Scalecoat Aluminum. I taped off the cab roof and repainted it with Scalecoat Oxide mixed with one squirt (small glass pipette full) of Scalecoat White. This gave me the desired look as best I could get from watching the Pentrex DVD-The Frisco 1522 Galloping through Texas. I taped off and painted the smoke box with a mixture of Scalecoat Loco Black and Scalecoat Graphite and Oil. This gave me the color of the smoke as seen in the DVD's.

I hand painted the cab windows and any visible water valves with Floquils Caboose Red to break up all the black of the loco. I hand painted the cab windows arm rests with Model Masters Leather color. I still need to install a front coupler, white marker jewels, cab crew and the Tsunami DCC sound decoder.

Below are the photos of the loco to this point.

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fr10.JPG (183.84 KiB) Viewed 70 times

fr11.JPG (98.64 KiB) Viewed 70 times

[ACL1504]

fr12.JPG (51.98 KiB) Viewed 70 times