quote:

Originally posted by FrankRazz:
I just received my cars today and I checked the color to see if they had the bronze tint. I remember seeing the SF cars at York and they had a bronze tint but the cars I just received do not have the tint. I was happy with the color as long as they match the new SF F-3 with chromed plating.

These particular cars may not be bronzed, but they sure don't look anything like stainless steel. They look as if they were just painted with a flat silver paint. There doesn't appear to be any polish or shine to them at all. I don't know how they're going to match chromed plating on the engines. Is the photo inaccurate?

quote:

Originally posted by breezinup:
There doesn't appear to be any polish or shine to them at all. I don't know how they're going to match chromed plating on the engines. Is the photo inaccurate?

The cars have a slight shine, not as flat as shown in the picture but not shiny enough to match a chromed shine I think will be on the engine.. Your also right about the silver paint, in fact, the paint or finish wasn't applied evenly. There are areas on the cars where the finish looks thicker.
I not very happy at all with the scratches or the dull finish. I never purchased aluminum finished cars from MTH, I was always disappointed with plastic being painted with silver paint. I had hoped these would be different, I was wrong and in the future, I will go back to looking to other manufactures for their chromed aluminum cars..
I finally checked the 5 car set and both two car sets, with the exception of the baggage car, all cars have the one inch scrathes below the windows.. Not good!!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: FrankRazz,

I have several previously run sets and they too have the "scratches" to which you are referring. These seem to be some sort of imperfection in the die and are not new to the current cars.

Alan

And MTH didn't bother to fix the dies prior to reuse? I can't believe they never noticed this before. I think it's a case of being too expensive to fix versus just dealing with the few people that return the product.

quote:

Originally posted by FrankRazz:
...I was always disappointed with plastic being painted with silver paint. I had hoped these would be different, I was wrong and in the future, I will go back to looking to other manufactures for their chromed aluminum cars...

Right. As I've said in the past, there is no substitute for aluminum cars to replicate stainless steel passenger cars, like Santa Fe, Burlington, California Zephyr, etc. My Lionel Santa Fe passenger cars (the newer ones with sprung trucks, painted interiors and figures, roof antennas and detail parts, etc.) are really stunning with their bright fluted sides and smooth shiny roofs. Silver painted plastic absolutely pales (sorry for the pun) in comparison.

Given my perception of the goldish tint at York, I have declined to purchase the add-on cars and I just picked up an old 20-6743 SF vista dome that matches my other 7 cars in my E-6 consist. I might pick up the other two at Potomac Trading. The Vista Dome looks nice with the Kline folks I just added.