Finishing Nickel-plated brass cars

[Cajonpassfan]

Advice on finishing nickel-plated brass for that “stainless steel” look would be appreciated. Looks challenging!
I have the makings of a twelve car, late forties Chief. The transcon cars (2 NYC, Pennsy, ATSF DC) are plastic, but the other eight are brass, with a nickel-plated finish that doesn’t quite look right to me. Gloss doesn’t scale down right. Clearly, I need to separate what’s silver/aluminum paint from the stainless surfaces, but the stainless finish seems tricky, see the beautiful Wally Abbey photo below, and my N scale cars. I’m scratching my head here, in part because I’d like to do it right, and in part in fear of screwing up an expensive investment. The cars also need glazing, shades, some interior work, but paint needs to be done first.
Anyone here done something like this...?
Thanks,
Otto K.

[draskouasshat]

I've got them with dullcote with decent results to tone down the shine. Ill see if i have any pictures.

Drasko

[peteski]

Otto,  since these are metal car, have no fear of experimenting with various coatings.  No matter what paint or clear coat you use, you will be able to easily strip them with one of many paint stripping solutions available for metal items (including Lacquer Thinner).  Those stripping solutions are more potent than anything that is plastic-safe, so whatever you coated the cars with will come off easily.

If you think the plating is too shiny, you could spray them with some sort of clear satin coat.  My favorite satin finish is a blend of Testors Glosscote, and Dullcote (from the glass bottles, not spray cans).  My mixture is 3 parts Dullcote, 4 parts Glosscote, and 6 parts generic Lacquer Thinner.  This is airbrush-ready, and I use it as a final coat on painted and decaled cars.

But I'm not sure how well will it adhere to bare metal.  You might want to first coat the metal sides with Tamiya Metal Primer.  That primer is actually gloss clear.

[Loren Perry]

I experienced the same feelings when I purchased a brass 12-car 1951 Super Chief set back in the 1990's when I was a member of the Belmont Shore Lines club in SoCal. Far too shiny, especially when next to my Kato F-7 A-B-B-A consist. The prototypes never looked that shiny in period photos.

I ended up airbrushing all the cars with a coat of Alclad "aluminum" right out of the bottle. This is a solution that involves microscopic metal particles suspended in a liquid carrier, like a thinner. It dries in just a minute or so. I felt that Aluminum was a more acceptable choice after trying other colors including stainless, chrome, and so on. It turned out to be an excellent choice. After applying decals, I finished it with a clear satin-finish and the train was used regularly for the next 18 years with no problems at all. The finish held up well despite being handled and operated for long periods. No repairs or re-touching were ever needed and the cars matched the Kato engines nicely. I ended up selling it last year after I had acquired the Kato Super Chief and the new owner was very pleased with its appearance.

[Cajonpassfan]

Thanks guys, advice appreciated. You make a good point Pete, about being able to undo mistakes.
Loren, great to hear from you, I didn’t know you are on TRW! Thanks.
I guess I’ll experiment. One of the things I’d like to capture is the texture and shadows without killing the sheen in the highlights, like the photo I took below. Maybe that’s asking too much of an N scale model.
Otto