As I may or may not have mentioned somewhere on here possibly - I'm building a Great Northern train. I've got 3 box cars (one Empire Builder art car, one famous American railroads), the tank car and bay caboose from the famous American railroads set... and a lovely dual motor RS-3 to pull it all with. Yay.
As I'm searching on a certain auction website for Christmas gifts, I came across the lovely MTH 30-75429 and immediately almost die from sticker shock. $80us. No thanks, although that hopper is the perfect thing to finish off my little train, I began to look elsewhere. Having found that Microscale made a decal sheet for GN express boxcars, I purchased one of those in the same afternoon. I also recalled the stacks of Lionel MPC hoppers at the LHS that were pretty much being given away.
So I got everything together and disassembled the hopper. I had read on here (I think) that the best way to remove the old decals was with vinegar. Nope. IPA? Nope. Varsol! YES! now we're onto someth- oh shoot, it's melting the plastic. Aw heck it. so I put 4 or 5 coats of primer over everything, sanded it and smoothed it out. Then got some dark green paint (I'm going to repaint my patio furniture in the spring) and gave it 3 coats, let it dry and applied the decals, then sprayed some clear on it and now it's drying in my kitchen. It's my first time hand lettering something and I think it turned out pretty good.
