A Dorfan standard gauge saga. At a TTOS meet last year I purchased a Dorfan 3920 locomotive that had a very nice restored shell mated together with a McCoy motor. To accommodate the McCoy motor all of the original mounting bosses inside the shell (where the gears and motor elements once attached) had been ground off. As noted the shell was as nice as they come for Dorfan, but unfortunately it had been repainted in an awful shade of tan.It ran well but looked pretty drab.
I decided to repaint it and started off with red in mind. I prepped the existing paint with ultra fine steel wool and then sprayed it with a nice Flyer red from the Collector's Color paint line. Unfortunately that paint (literally) never dried. I eventually baked it which caused it to start drying, but it also made it bubble. In the end I concluded that the tan paint that I painted over was incompatible with the new lacquer-based paint.
After ignoring it for a while, I decided to do it over in black (also from Collector Colors and no problems drying), sanding down the red and then applying a primer coat. Along the way I opted to paint the doors in the dark red, based on the Ives 3240 paint scheme which is one of my favorites.
In the end I'm quite happy with it, I don't think Dorfan ever offered the 3920 in black, but I like it. And with the McCoy motor it has plenty of pulling power. I may also replace the very unusual stanchions at the four corners- these should have been flag holders, but whomever rebuilt it before me put some unusual turned brass pieces in there instead.
