Lionel 5 Star General Before & After

John, that's great to see! I have the Mickey set as well, and have stayed away from this because of the jerkiness of that loco! Thanks for the update!

Johnny Cash tells a great story about this engine in his "riding the rails" special.

 

pdxtrains posted:

John, that's great to see! I have the Mickey set as well, and have stayed away from this because of the jerkiness of that loco! Thanks for the update!

Pdxtrains, glad to see another fellow Oregonian around these parts!  Reporting to you live from Bend

Got any good model railroad shops on your end of the Cascades you can recommend?  The 1 shop here in town is very, bleh....

Now I'm really curious to try the updated Mickey's Christmas train with Bluetooth to see if the recent updates, such as what they did to the Five Star, also helped the Mickey 4-4-0.  Luckily, you can find the updated Loco and tender for sale on eBay.  I enjoyed the Mickey 4-4-0 for Christmas very much, aside from its jerkyness and loud humming at low speeds.  So I decided to gut it and try to make it look closer to the #1 engine at Disneyland:  The C.K. Holliday

John:

Whistle Stop and Hobby Smith are two great train stores here in PDX.

I have the newer Bluetooth version of Mickey and it's still either FAST or DEAD STOP.

I love your Disneyland buildings! Did you build them, or purchase? If you bought, may I ask where?

 

pdxtrains posted:

John:

Whistle Stop and Hobby Smith are two great train stores here in PDX.

I have the newer Bluetooth version of Mickey and it's still either FAST or DEAD STOP.

I love your Disneyland buildings! Did you build them, or purchase? If you bought, may I ask where?

 

Bummer about the newer Mickey Train.  Might be time to crack open the 5* General and look for differences in motors/gears.  I can't imagine its electronics.  But anything is possible I guess. 

I follow the Whistle Stop on FB.  They have great customer service over the phone.  Just wish they had an online store to make things easier to shop for here in our state.

"Carpetlands" buildings consist of different Christmas Village buildings and Disneyland toy sets.  The Main St. station is the old HO sized Disney World plastic model you can still find on eBay.  The Castle is a playset still available through Disney online.  Main St. is made up of various exclusive buildings sold at the parks or now eBay.  Some of them being Department 56 items.  And the mountain you see pictures was my first attempt at the Matterhorn which is scratch built.  Here's a link to Carpetlands youtube videos.  Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/channe...w?view_as=subscriber

Nobody has any info for the gunfighter car? Pulling that many cars I also have to ask, is the Generals shell cast metal. Even with the power and weight of a heavy Pulmore, my Generals dont have the traction to pull that many cars.

Adriatic posted:

Nobody has any info for the gunfighter car? Pulling that many cars I also have to ask, is the Generals shell cast metal. Even with the power and weight of a heavy Pulmore, my Generals dont have the traction to pull that many cars.

Hi,

The Sheriff and Outlaw cars that I have are from 2008.  Trainz has them once and a while.   This was their description for the one I won:

This is a Lionel 36856 Western and Atlantic Sheriff and Outlaw Operating Car from 2008. Features include die-cast metal trucks and operating couplers, two figures alternately bob up and down through the roof openings as the car rolls down the track nicely simulating a gunfight. It also has a metal frame. It measures 9 inches long and the minimum curve radius is O-27.

Manufacturer: Lionel
Model Number: 6-36856
Years Manufactured: 2008 - 2008
Road Name: W&ARR
Original MSRP: $74.99

I won it for $35, after ten bids! shipping was about $11 and there is that buyers premium.  I won a few other items that week, so my actual unit shipping cost was lower.   

I also have the Outlaw car from the 2017 catalog, its red and still in the box. 

Thank you Brewman.

  The post war gunfighter car is one of my 2 favorites. I always liked the W&A yellow though, and one of my two Generals kinda needs a gunfight to be "right" in my eyes.

  The later Gunfighter cars I had seen got remade with a simple teeter-totter mech vs a cam and gearing. The floating action wasn't nearly as nice as the cam action. Watching the video, I was surprised to see what looked like cam action gearing where the desperado ducks with a firm "clack" that I always perceived as our sheriff's gun firing   Can you say if the mech is the same as PW. I'd love to have some extra parts too. Just in case of course, because mine has never had an issue in 50+ years of regular use.

Are these 5-Star engine's cast metal shells?

   I just can't get over all the cars it is managing. Mine have the power, but not the traction. I cut off the cow catcher at the pilot beam on one and added a coupler to the front truck to double head two in order to get more than just 5-6 cars moving without slipping.

   If you need more passenger cars for the era, MTH has made some W&A cars too fyi. Different look, colors, etc., but still the right look for the era.

Adriatic, the newer Lionchief Generals shells are plastic.  But they have added a good amount of metal weight to them and 2 traction wheels which helps them quite a bit. 

It must be the traction tires. I have run every General up till the James Gang version and always thought magnetraction would have done them all a world of good. I never understood why it was never redone with it. I cant think of any engine it was more effective on, so the tires must help tons. Any idea on exact weight? The MPC Pulmor R.I.&P. General weighs in at 1.5 lbs on the nose.

Adriatic posted:

It must be the traction tires. I have run every General up till the James Gang version and always thought magnetraction would have done them all a world of good. I never understood why it was never redone with it. I cant think of any engine it was more effective on, so the tires must help tons. Any idea on exact weight? The MPC Pulmor R.I.&P. General weighs in at 1.5 lbs on the nose.

No idea on the weight.  But if I can track down a scale, i'll see what it weighs in at.

Thanks to Galy, I set out to add a little of the shiny stuff to the Ole General, and went a little further with it.  Enjoy

Looks good! 

Hi Galy, Thank you for sharing your re-painting technique on the domes and bell of the 5 Star General engine. Learning from your example, I am currently working on the final stages of mine. I will post some images when completed. 

Hi everybody,

I would like to let you know that I just completed repainting the bell and domes on my 2017 Lionel reproduction of the 5-Star General engine. It took me four months to perfect using DecoArt Glorious Gold gloss enamel acrylic paint and some fine-gritted sandpaper for smoothing the surface. Here are the 4 phases from my refining process.

1. The bell, domes and boiler bands as they appeared fresh out of the box.
2. I used a mini screwdriver to scrape off the grey paint on the boiler bands.
3. I applied the gold paint (as seen below) onto the bell and domes. However, I wasn’t really satisfied of how the surface turned out, so I used fine-gritted sandpaper to smooth out and repaint the surface.
4. After 4 months of compromising, I finally finished refining the engine to how I wanted it. The bell and domes look a lot smoother and     closer to its original molded shape.

 

So here it is. My finished re-painted model of the 5-Star General engine.

Hope you enjoy it!

Look good OneTrackMind!  How did you apply the paint to the domes/bell?  Looks very very clean!

onetrackmind posted:

Hi everybody,

I would like to let you know that I just completed repainting the bell and domes on my 2017 Lionel reproduction of the 5-Star General engine. It took me four months to perfect using DecoArt Glorious Gold gloss enamel acrylic paint and some fine-gritted sandpaper for smoothing the surface. Here are the 4 phases from my refining process.

1. The bell, domes and boiler bands as they appeared fresh out of the box.
2. I used a mini screwdriver to scrape off the grey paint on the boiler bands.
3. I applied the gold paint (as seen below) onto the bell and domes. However, I wasn’t really satisfied of how the surface turned out, so I used fine-gritted sandpaper to smooth out and repaint the surface.
4. After 4 months of compromising, I finally finished refining the engine to how I wanted it. The bell and domes look a lot smoother and     closer to its original molded shape.

 

So here it is. My finished re-painted model of the 5-Star General engine.

Hope you enjoy it!

Hi Onetrackmind,

Nice job, looks great. Enjoy

Galy

Janitor John posted:

Look good OneTrackMind!  How did you apply the paint to the domes/bell?  Looks very very clean!

Thank you for your kind comment. I applied slightly diluted paint with a thin brush on the domes and bell. In order to prevent mistakes, I used thin strips of masking tape on the mid-sections of the domes, boiler and handrails. 

Galy posted:

Brewman1973 posted:

Galy posted:

No.   Believe it or not the brass bands are there, but they painted them grey for some reason. The domes & bell I removed, masked and painted them gold.

Pat

Hi Pat, 

I am picking up my set today,  so I am considering making your changes.  On the brass bands, how did you remove the paint.  Also, was it hard to remove the domes and bell.

 

Thanks so much for posting this!  

Janitor John posted:

Subtle, but wow, what a difference!  Gotta get some video of this beauty running!

How tough was it taking the shell apart to repaint?

I did not remove the shell. I used a sharp mini screwdriver the same width as the bands and gently scraped the grey paint off. Make sure the screwdriver tip is sharp. As for the domes and bell. If you wiggle the top dome, it comes out easy. The small dome and bell are difficult and can easily be broken especially the bell. But it can be done. I used the same flat blade for the removal of the bell. If your good with a paint brush and gold paint, that would be a lot easier. The boiler is not painted, it's molded grey plastic.

Pat

Hi Pat,

I did not remove the bell and small dome during the repainting process because I didn't want to risk breaking them. However, I was able to take the top dome off easily.

Outstanding!!!!! I love what you've done to this engine!