Jeff_the_Coaster_Guy posted:These all look great. I'm looking forward to refinishing some of my old stuff some day. I've got a lot of cheap stuff (mid-80's 027 cars with the garbage plastic trucks and no springs) that I can experiment on.
I'm really keen on finding Norfolk Southern Decals for Locos and Cars in O gauge. Not a lot of that going around. What did you use for your NS Loco?
Jeff, if you read some of the descriptions I've written, I mention mixing scales of decals quite a bit, using larger logo HO sets like for locomotives. On the Alco FA's I repainted, those were HO sets, save for the nose decal: Somewhere along the way I found some S scale Norfolk Southern decal sets and ordered a bunch while they were available.
Many times, true O scale decal sets will be too large for some applications on smaller 027 cars, though I do use either O or S scale capacity data. Microscale has been SLOWLY reissuing some O scale decals and my advice to anyone, is to buy them when you see them. It sends a message to Mircoscale that there is a market, and you don't know how long what you want will be available.
I will offer a differing viewpoint on truck sets: I don't think the plastic ones are garbage. Certainly no worry about zinc rot. Granted, I wish the Symington style hadn't been made, but it is what it is. Though I have plastic truck sets from the Kughn era of Lionel (mid-1990's) where the knuckles no longer spring open by themselves, whereas all my MPC era cars, the knuckles STILL spring open. Obviously a difference in the composition of the Delrin plastic used.
The biggest drawback to the plastic trucks is not the trucks themselves, but the rivet mounting that is standard. The truck sets are always loose, with quite a bit of wobble: This looseness is what causes derailments when backing up a train into tight curves.
I drill out all rivets and replace them with a truss screw and a lock nut. I tighten it all the way, then loosen it just enough for the truck to swivel left to right. I haven't had a derailment in years, when running a train backwards though tight 027 curves, even with a light 8 inch MPC car pushing much heavier cars with die cast trucks!
