Best Custom Painters?


Amtrak47

Amtrak47

Member
Does anyone know or recommend a really good custom painting service for HO Scale passenger cars? I have an Amtrak dome car from walthers, and I want it painted as Conway Scenic Railroad's "Dorthea Mae" dome car, this car is the perfect prototype and would match my conway scenic diner car. Please help! :confused::D



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Espeefan said:
What are you going to do for the lettering?
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I do not know :confused::rolleyes: Well actually there is a website where I can get decals to cover the "Conway Scenic Railroad" letters, but the "Dorthea Mae" letters are gonna be hard to obtain.
 
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There are probably several hundred to several thousand of CP's around. I would first look at advertizements in MR, RMC, etc. Check out websites, here Google helps. There are several fabulous painters on this very forum, but I know one of them, me, is retired.
 
Amtrak47 said:
I do not know :confused::rolleyes: Well actually there is a website where I can get decals to cover the "Conway Scenic Railroad" letters, but the "Dorthea Mae" letters are gonna be hard to obtain.
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Well if they do the name they should do the stripes and car names as well I'd think. The lettering looks like Railroad Roman. If it is the car name could be pieced together a letter at a time. I've done that on some projects. takes a while but quite possible. That's a four color paint job with decaling unless you had planned to do that yourself. it will not be cheap. As CJ says, there are a number of painters on the forum who are actively looking for business. You should have no problem finding one!
 
Espeefan said:
Well if they do the name they should do the stripes and car names as well I'd think. The lettering looks like Railroad Roman. If it is the car name could be pieced together a letter at a time. I've done that on some projects. takes a while but quite possible. That's a four color paint job with decaling unless you had planned to do that yourself. it will not be cheap. As CJ says, there are a number of painters on the forum who are actively looking for business. You should have no problem finding one!
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The place where I found decals has only that, the name. I'd never expect something like this to be cheap, it's worth it. I emailed someone I found on the internet who seems like a really good painter, he's been doing it for over 20 years, his work is really impressive. I do not have the time, patience or equipment to do the work myself lol. If this goes good, I have another car i need painted in the Conway scenic livery and 2 locomotives as well.
 
This is the other car I am referring to, I just won it for a good price on ebay, normally sells for around $80, got it for $27. I'm going to have this painted as Conway Scenic's "Carroll P Reed' car #3234. Perfect prototype! :D



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blackz28 said:
Highball graphics in new hampshire
Can do the graphic decals for you
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Be very wary about doing business with Highball Graphics. The last time I got a set of custom decals from him they were defective and he did not respond to emails asking for a replacement. It's also not the first time I'd received decals that were defective. In the past I was able to easily work around the problems without needing replacements, but on this last episode I did find out that he will just leave you screwed over rather than replace any defective product.
 
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MikeOwnby said:
Be very wary about doing business with Highball Graphics. The last time I got a set of custom decals from him they were defective and he did not respond to emails asking for a replacement. It's also not the first time I'd received decals that were defective. In the past I was able to easily work around the problems without needing replacements, but on this last episode I did find out that he will just leave you screwed over rather than replace any defective product.
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I honestly have no plans on doing business with them, they seem kinda sketchy.... Anyway, I can buy a decal set meant for CSRR's "Chocorua" dining car to use the "Conway Scenic Railroad" lettering and figure out the rest another time, i'm in no rush :cool:
 
blackz28 said:
I have used them & i never had an issue
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As in you've never gotten bad decals or have gotten them and had no problem getting a replacement set? I've had two sets that didn't have enough topcoat sprayed on parts of the decal sheet and some of the decals of course just fell apart when wetted. In one case it meant that a loco doesn't have the railroad's URL on one side, but since I'd waited several months to ever get around to using the decals I decided it wasn't fair to try and get a replacement. It's just not that noticeable either. Another set had a bad spot but luckily it was discovered early and I just touched up the topcoat and switched road numbers. So, like I said, I just worked those out. This last New England Central set, though, was badly scratched up. The packaging was fully intact and undamaged, so what had to have happened was that something got put on top of the decal set and moved around on top of it before it was ever shipped. I contacted him four times to try and obtain a replacement set and was completely ignored. There wasn't any disagreement or failure to work things out. I was just flat-out, blatantly ignored completely. In the end I did find out that gloss black paint blends seamlessly into the black decals that were involved, so I did manage to salvage the loco build with a combination of paint touch-ups and decal stripes from Microscale. It's just plain ridiculous, though, to have to paint your decals and even use material from other decal sets just to get that accomplished. And frankly, if it were a modeler who had more difficulty doing fine detail work they would have just been screwed.

So yeah, I've gotten perfectly good decal sets from him that worked fine. But the true measure of a company and an individual is what happens when you do actually have an issue that needs to be resolved. Highball Graphics failed miserably and spectacularly on that front.
 
To bad that happened, i used to run into him
A few times a year & order them from him
My son uses him also so far no issue
 
Thanks for the heads up on Highball! If I'm going to pay $35 a sheet for my decals then they better be good and correct!
 
I actually got a quote from the custom painter and i'm not too pleased.

1-He's in California, shipping is expensive and I prefer some much closer.
2- I know it's an expensive thing to do, but I find $150 per car to be a little much.... And what if I don't like how it came out or what if it gets damaged in shipment? It could impossible to get that money back.

Anyone someone closer to my Area? (Worcester, MA) Or in the New England Area? Any info would be great!!!
 
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