Trolley Roof Finished

I had previously written about painting and weathering the new skirting that I had added to the trolley and mentioned that I wanted to do something about repainting the roof next.  I didn't really care for that molded-in cream with a slight green tint color of the roof (top photo at right).  It definitely appeared rather toy-like to me so I wanted to paint it to change the color to something more realistic.  

My plan was to chose a color, mix the paint myself to attain the desired color and then paint the roof.  Upon looking more closely at the roof and some of the details that were installed on the roof, I realized that I would need to remove these details first so I removed the pantograph and then removed the wood plank walkways.  I always knew I wanted to make these plastic walkways appear as though they are wood so I figured I would need to remove them at some point anyway.  I originally wasn't thinking I need to remove them to paint the roof but I reluctantly removed all the detail parts from the roof at this point. 

I mixed up a reddish brown roof color but I unknowingly used a red acrylic paint that was a semi-gloss.  I didn't realize this mistake until after the paint had partially dried (and it needed a loonnnngggg time to dry).  So, I needed to start over.  For the next batch of paint, I made sure to use a flat acrylic paint.  I didn't want any shine on this model that would show brush strokes or make it appear toy-like!

Then I mixed up a light gray color but I wasn't too fond of that color either even though many old trolleys have a roof painted light gray.  I was envisioning a warmer brownish color.  Plus the red in the warm brown mix would pair well with the red paint in the body of the trolley.  I mixed up a brown paint that I liked and repainted the roof again.  This one was a good mix.  I let that dry overnight and then applied a second coat today.  

While the roof was drying, I turned my attention to the wood plank walkways that I had removed from the roof.  I scratched-in some grooves down the lengths of the planks to accentuate wood grain.  I applied a base coat of paint and then wiped that paint off the top surface leaving paint in the grooves that would be the grain.  While that was drying, I then mixed up more watered-down paint so I could "stain" the planks.  This needed three or four coats but each coat dried quickly.

After seeing the roof painted brown, I instantly noticed that the newly installed and painted skirting underneath that trolley was sort of clashing with the rest of the trolley now.  I had painted the new skirting using a mixture of lamp black and light gray to give me a charcoal shade.  Since I used only black and gray, this meant it was devoid of any hint of color.  Instead, it was a rather "cold" hue of charcoal.  This cold hue was clashing with the warmth of the reds in the body and now the newly painted roof.  When mixing black paint for anything that you want to look a bit weathered, you should always add a bit of a tint to it so it slightly leans toward a color.  This color won't be noticeable but the shade of black does matter.  (I originally noticed this when painting homes as a painting contractor during college.)

In this case, because my roof and the body of the trolley had red in it, I needed to mix a black-ish color with red in it.  Well...  really...  I needed a red that is so dark that it is almost black.  I needed to warm up the tint of the charcoal skirting.  This was easy to do though because I still had some of the paint leftover from what I mixed for the roof.  I just added some black to that mix to darken it to the right shade and that provided a warmer charcoal color.  Then I repainted the skirting, the steps, and front and rear bumpers with this new mix of a warmer charcoal paint.  

Since I covered all the weathering I had previously applied to the skirting with this new charcoal paint, I needed to do the weathering over again.  That was easy to do but it required a little more time.  Actually, I'm still refining my weathering skills so this was good practice anyway.  

These first few photos, below, show the faux wood paint job I did on the plastic planking to make all these walkways appear to be made of real wood planks.  I really like the way this turned out.

Here is a photo of the skirting and motor side-frames, repainted and re-weathered...

And, a photo from the front end of the trolley...

This is now almost a completely different trolley than the cheap used trolley I purchased around Christmastime.  Here are the upgrades...  

1.  The original motor had cracked gears so I needed to replace the motor block (these are the chances you take when you purchase a used item on eBay but the price was right).  I ordered a replacement motor block from Bachmann but I didn't like that one either.  The gears sounded as though they would crack after only minimal use so it was obvious to me that Bachmann is terrible at gearing.  Sow speed operation was rather poor too and all trains should operate smoothly at slow speed especially a trolley.  I've seen worse but it wasn't running nearly as smoothly nor as slowly as I wanted so I ordered a better motor block.  

2.  Installing the new motor block required some rather extensive adapting in order to mount it to the body of this trolley.  Obviously, I came up with a plan for adapting the trolley and the motor block so now the motor block is secured to the underside of the trolley.  

3.  I removed all existing wiring because I had ordered a Bluetooth DCC decoder to run this trolley instead instead of the standard DC power picked-up through the tracks.  This new DCC decoder is controlled by an app installed on my tablet or cellphone and it would provide many more features and sounds to this previously silent-running trolley (silent except for those original grinding gears!).  

4.  As I rewired the trolley for the new electronics, I also added a speaker for sound.  I had to make a speaker enclosure too.  The sound is actually quite nice now!  Although the sound is now great, in hindsight, I would have used a slightly smaller speaker and made a smaller speaker enclosure to save space.  I installed a 2" speaker.  

5.  This new DCC decoder is able to run on battery power so I needed to find a place to hide a three cell Lithium-Ion battery too.  The battery, speaker and electronics are now mounted on the underside of the roof.  I thought this would be easy but it was actually quite difficult and a bit frustrating!  It is the best place for all of these items though.

6.  Since I converted this trolley to battery power, I needed to add a jack for charging, an On-Off switch and a fuse.  These three parts were installed on the underside of the trolley.  This  meant that the wiring would be through the flooring of the trolley.  I managed to fit most of this wiring under the seats in the trolley but there was one area where I needed more room so I had to hide some wiring with a custom-made luggage rack in place of a short section of seating.  I still have one or two bunches of wires hanging from the ceiling but I intend to hide that a little better sometime in the future.  

7.  Since this new motor block was intended to be used in a diesel locomotive and not this particular trolley, it is a slightly different size than the original motor block...  the wheels are slightly smaller, the wheelbase is slightly longer, and the new motor block was slightly taller.  I installed some custom skirting to hide this different motor block enough to make the different size be far less noticeable.  

8.  The trolley had some toy-like hook couplers on the front and back ends...  I removed those.  If necessary, I'll add more realistic couplers but I don't think I'll ever need to do that.  

9.  I painted the roof a rich chocolate brown color.  I also painted the plank walkways on the roof to appear as though they are really wood.  

This trolley now looks great and sounds great!  It runs very smoothly and is a joy to run.  Lukey really enjoys running this trolley!