Thanks Sparks - that is great stuff.

Funny, I notice Thomas always has his lamp in the same place, Percy too, I think. I'll keep looking for James.

Another thought about James: I don't recall ever seeing him with a headlamp on his buffer. Anyone else? I may try to remove it.

and I still have a lot to learn about British prototype practices.

But this thread has excited me about fixing up James. In addition to the paint changes, I would like to remove the molded on hand rails and whistle and replace them with a cast whistle and wire handrails.

Thanks on30gn15. Those are some great examples. I am used to seeing the locos out here in the west with unjacketed smokeboxes. And the diameter through that section is noticeably smaller than the boiler. And you make a good point about British practices, they do tend to go more for the shiny look - though the brass on some of western US 19th century stuff can be pretty sparkly!

Quote from: Sparks on December 18, 2011, 06:32:33 PM
...What does that have to do with this thread?

He was responding to a point I had made about painting James' smokebox. I had said that it probably didn't have to be glossy and he was correcting me. I'm sure the OP will appreciate this information as well. (Next time read a little more carefully before you criticize.)

It's never bothered me until now. The smokebox on the model is glossy black - but yeah, I see now, the support frame under the smoke box should also be black.

And the wheels? Mine are gray I guess. That doesn't bother me so much - and painting drive wheels can be tricky. There is always the chance of messing up things if you get paint into the moving parts of the coupling rod. Plus there is a risk that the paint you apply will be worn off over time making it look worse.

First make sure you have a glossy black paint. I use Tamiya paint which is a pretty close match to the Bachmann colors.

Disassemble the model as much as you can to isolate the parts to be painted. Mask off the adjacent areas as Toby said.

Here's a tip I saw on the DIY channel: After you apply the masking tape, pain the edge the color you masked over - in this case gloss red. That way if anything seeps under the tape it will match what is under there. Additionally, this step will block further seepage.

Air brushing is always best, but not always feasible. I will probably use a brush. Be careful about brushing too much on the first coat - brushing over a partially dried coat will give you a rough finish. If after it dries, you are happy with the first coat, there is no reason to apply more.

If your smoke box has a good finish, try not to get paint on it. If the finish is slightly off between the two surfaces that's okay and easily explainable. Typically smoke boxes are not a gloss finish because they get so hot - even though I know this is the way James is finished, it's not really prototypical.

In my case, since I had altered James internally to improve his performance I have tool marks on the smoke box, so I will repaint the whole thing.

Go slowly and carefully and you should have good results.

Good luck

Edward looks like he's the same size as James - and unless they have changed it internally somehow, I would say it is a very poor climber - worse than Percy. My James couldn't even pull himself up a 2% grade. I had to remove his eye mechanism and replace it with weights in the smoke box and in the cab.

Great news! That's what makes a good company great.

The demand seems high on this forum and among other Thomas modelers. But honestly, the number of people that want a Skarloey don't make the tooling worth it. Bachmann does well with their HO standard gauge range because of the crossover into the toy market. Narrow gauge items wouldn't do well in that market (see how many N scale models are targeting the toy market). But if anyone could do it, it would be Bachmann since they already manufacture the 9mm chassis - and I feel that the fact that they haven't moved in that direction a good enough reason to believe that it wouldn't be worth the effort.

Having said that, there is nothing to stop a modeler from making his own narrow gauge locomotive from existing materials - which has already been discussed here. For instance, I am making a Duncan from a N scale 0-4-0 and a brass boiler. It should be a good runner. I also have plans for a similar narrow gauge diesel using a N scale chassis from Bachmann. This is part of the fun of MODELING - as opposed to just buying off-the-shelf RTR models.