MTH Premier Santa Fe Hudson restoration, aka Frankenstein's monster

Nice work! 

Amazing job! Really cool that you brought the locomotive back to life. It’s awesome that a Lionel shell fit an MTH chassis. Unless I read it wrong. Great job. Thanks for sharing. 

Hudson J1e posted:

Amazing job! Really cool that you brought the locomotive back to life. It’s awesome that a Lionel shell fit an MTH chassis. Unless I read it wrong. Great job. Thanks for sharing. 

Thanks. You read it correctly. It's a Lionel tender shell on a MTH tender chassis. Just had to do a little trimming on the chassis and it fit fine.

I would have to say awesome job! I really like the whistle. My PS2 AT&SF #3463 pales in comparison.

PAUL ROMANO posted:

I would have to say awesome job! I really like the whistle. My PS2 AT&SF #3463 pales in comparison.

I have a PS2 3463 as well. Still one of my favorites. But the PS3 whistle is just a little bit nicer. 

Very nice recap. Enjoy!!!

Excellent work!  Where did you get those large decals that are on the sides of the tender?

Steve

Very cool project, excellent craftmanship.

Steam Guy posted:

Excellent work!  Where did you get those large decals that are on the sides of the tender?

Steve

I had all the decals custom made out of thin vinyl. There is no decal film that way. You just position them and run them down with a wood or rubber stick. They are stuck to a clear transfer sheet like old dry transfer letters. I used a heat gun on low to slightly warm the large heralds after they were installed to get them to conform over the rivets and a rubber squeegee to push the vinyl down. After the decals set for about 30 minutes I clear coated everything to lock the vinyl in place. The great thing is it looks like factory pad printed graphics up close. There is no decal film to hide. Now the only downside is cost. These have to be cut by a machine and the excess material around the decals removed by hand, so they cost much more than waterslide decals. 

Many thanks Lou1985.  But where did you purchase them from?  What is the source of them?

Steve

Lou1985......or did you make them yourself?

Steve

Steam Guy posted:

Many thanks Lou1985.  But where did you purchase them from?  What is the source of them?

Steve

 

It's a "I know a guy who knows a guy" situation. The gentlemen who made the decals has a vinyl sign business. He's a model railroader and only does certain train projects on the side, so he asked that I not give his information out. 

Lou1985,

Thanks....However, if he decides to make some more please let me know.  That large blue herald was also applied to one of Santa Fe's 4-6-2's, but only one per tender side, not 2 as on the Hudson.

Steve

Steam Guy posted:

Lou1985,

Thanks....However, if he decides to make some more please let me know.  That large blue herald was also applied to one of Santa Fe's 4-6-2's, but only one per tender side, not 2 as on the Hudson.

Steve

 

Next time I talk to him I'll ask. I'll let you know via email if he's willing to make more. 

What 4-6-2 were you thinking of doing up? No one has made a scale 3 rail Santa Fe Pacific as far as I know. 

Lou1985

I have a 2 rail Santa Fe 4-6-2 made by Max Gray or US Hobbies.  And yes, no one has made a 3 rail model of that engine.

Steve

Steam Guy posted:

Lou1985

I have a 2 rail Santa Fe 4-6-2 made by Max Gray or US Hobbies.  And yes, no one has made a 3 rail model of that engine.

Steve

 

That's what I thought. If there was a 3 rail model available I probably would have found it by now.

Lou1985

Attached is a photo from the Max Gray Pocket Spotters Guide showing the Santa Fe 4-6-2.  That photo is from Guide Number 1 though.

That could be your next project Lou. Get the Max Gray model and three rail it.

I know a guy..........that could help with the chassis. I think you know him too.

Pete

Norton posted:

That could be your next project Lou. Get the Max Gray model and three rail it.

I know a guy..........that could help with the chassis. I think you know him too.

Pete

I think we're thinking of the same guy. I doubt he has a 4-6-2 3 rail chassis with LFM drivers though. Plus I think the cost of a Max Gray ATSF Pacific is going to be a lot more than my usual projects 😉.

Besides I'm still finishing up another project. I'll have an update on that one soon. 

Lou, a friend in Germany who has been doing Legacy upgrades for as long as Lionel been selling the components (modular days) says he runs two rail engines on three rail track with no problem. I assume he is talking about T rail like Gragraves or Atlas. Just add pickup rollers and go.

Pete

Norton posted:

Lou, a friend in Germany who has been doing Legacy upgrades for as long as Lionel been selling the components (modular days) says he runs two rail engines on three rail track with no problem. I assume he is talking about T rail like Gragraves or Atlas. Just add pickup rollers and go.

Pete

My layout is 027 profile track, with a maximum curve of 072 and a minimum of 054. Switches are Ross. I need the big hi-rail wheels for the tube track.

Excellent. Love doing projects like that, though you probably do finer work than do I.

That is some great work, I love what you did.  That is something to be very proud of and it shows off really well.  Thanks for sharing with us.

Awesome remake job!

D500 posted:

Excellent. Love doing projects like that, though you probably do finer work than do I.

Thanks. It's not perfect but I'm the type of person who always finds flaws in their work that most people don't notice. 

I've found that I usually have more fun doing a locomotive project like this than just buying something new in a box. It's more of a challenge. Plus it's usually cheaper. I'm not charging myself labor 😄.

Lou1985 posted:

Back in December I acquired a incomplete MTH Premier Santa Fe Hudson, road number 3464: https://www.mthtrains.com/20-3144-1

The locomotive consisted of just the locomotive. No tender, no boards or wiring. Just the boiler, chassis, and motor.

Here it is next to my other MTH Premier Santa Fe Hudson, 3463. The locomotive ended up being a combination of parts from a couple Premier Santa Fe Hudsons, a bit of a Frankenstein's monster. So I went to work putting it back into working order. First thing was getting rid of the white walls on the front truck.

After that I set about adding lighting. I knew this was getting a PS3 steam kit so I used 3mm LEDs to light everything up, so I could run all the lighting off headlamp circuit in the kit.

The locomotive was also missing the signature ATSF stack extension. About 3 weeks of back and forth with MTH resulted in me getting almost the correct part. The shade of gray paint was a bit off but eh close enough.

With the locomotive cosmetically done I turned my attention to the tender, or lack there of. I ended up having to cobble the tender together from a few sources. The shell is from a Lionel 3751 class Northern. The last rebuild of the 3751 class included 20K gallon tenders, which were identical to the ones used on the 3460 class Hudsons. The chassis and trucks are from a MTH Premier ATSF Blue Goose Hudson, which itself was also a 3460 class Hudson. Some black paint on the tender trucks and we're starting to get somewhere.

Next up was making the thing move under its own power. That was accomplished by installing a PS3 upgrade kit. I used the sound file from a Premier PS3 Santa Fe Hudson in the locomotive.

Finally the tender needed some decoration. I didn't want 3464 to match 3463 so I had some custom decals made up to match the scheme that 3461 wore in 1941. 3464 never had this scheme but another 3460 class Hudson did, so close enough. This scheme has never been offered by MTH so this is a 1 of 1 design. 

Here it is all done. With PS3, quillable whistle and all.

This was about a 4 month project in my spare time, stretching from late December 2019 when i got the locomotive till today. Came out pretty neat in the end.

You did a great job here.All a round great locomotive.I have railking ps3 santa fe northern.This is one of the coolest sounding whistles I ever heard.Can you just think of hearing this.When the real thing was around.Any way again great job.

Cool and unique.

Lou1985 posted:

Steam Guy posted:

Excellent work!  Where did you get those large decals that are on the sides of the tender?

Steve

I had all the decals custom made out of thin vinyl. There is no decal film that way. You just position them and run them down with a wood or rubber stick. They are stuck to a clear transfer sheet like old dry transfer letters. I used a heat gun on low to slightly warm the large heralds after they were installed to get them to conform over the rivets and a rubber squeegee to push the vinyl down. After the decals set for about 30 minutes I clear coated everything to lock the vinyl in place. The great thing is it looks like factory pad printed graphics up close. There is no decal film to hide. Now the only downside is cost. These have to be cut by a machine and the excess material around the decals removed by hand, so they cost much more than waterslide decals. 

Very interesting information, thanks! I have printed some things on clear vinyl transfers using a photo printer and the results are good. But none of mine have been for tender bodies and are peel and stick rather than dry transfer (assuming there’s a difference but I think there must be).

Hancock52 posted:

Very interesting information, thanks! I have printed some things on clear vinyl transfers using a photo printer and the results are good. But none of mine have been for tender bodies and are peel and stick rather than dry transfer (assuming there’s a difference but I think there must be).

Well they are sticky backed vinyl. The decals are just a bit thicker than water slide decals. They work like dry transfer decals in that they are stuck to clear carrier paper. You lift them off the backing paper stuck to the carrier paper, place them on the model, rub them to adhere the vinyl to the model, them lift the carrier paper. After that the whole model gets a coat of clear to lock everything in place. 

seaboardm2 posted:

 

Here it is all done. With PS3, quillable whistle and all.

This was about a 4 month project in my spare time, stretching from late December 2019 when i got the locomotive till today. Came out pretty neat in the end.

You did a great job here.All a round great locomotive.I have railking ps3 santa fe northern.This is one of the coolest sounding whistles I ever heard.Can you just think of hearing this.When the real thing was around.Any way again great job.

Thanks. It was fun. I'm not sure how accurate the whistle is, as far as representing an actual Santa Fe steam passenger whistle. Sounds close to the one used on 3751 but a little higher pitched.

Exquisitely scrounged!  Good work!   

@M. Mitchell Marmel posted:

Exquisitely scrounged!  Good work!   

Thanks. It was more fun then just buying something out of a box. In the end I got exactly what I wanted.