Working through my box of 'projects'.....items I have bought on the cheap at shows or ebay intending to make them better someday. I decided I need to work on this box while I have some down time. This one started again as a Oscar Mayer plug door car that has odd large couplers, deep flange plastic wheels and trucks but have very limited truck movement and so light they just do not run well at all.
Seems they made a bunch of these.....
This conversion is not greatly different than the last. Modified frame to accept Lionel trucks this time. Modified to where the car can run on O-27 if needed but really altered to run well all the time and reliably. The stock ladders were broken badly so a set from the parts box was added. The paint this time, after removing the tampo decorations, was about 5 light coats of Dupli-color #1699 gray sealer. More than normal because this would become the final color coat. After all coats it went into the food dehydrator to dry and harden the paint. It was the polished with a model car polish kit in the area decals would be applied. This gave the sides a nice almost glossy finish. My own design decals were applied in the normal way. Later it will get some light weathering and a coat of flat finish.
So for my total investment of under $20 I have two new box cars to add to the running fleet. Still more projects in the salvage box.....maybe a gondola nest. Thanks for looking!
