American Flyer by Gilbert color chart

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I just got a hold at some cars and steam engines from AFG (about 30 of them), and most of them have some rust on and need some paint job on the metal parts.... two questions....

1) What is the best way get rust out? besides the obvious sanding.... I'm using some coke and seems to be working fairly good, but 50 year old rust won't just leave without a fight
2) Is there a color chart for AFG trains? I can see the colors in the model, but it would be easer to know reference numbers to make the proper mixes.

Thanks for any help anyone can give me.

[cacole]

Sometimes repainting or touching up the paint on an old item like those can destroy or lower their value, so I would proceed with caution if I were you until I could get an appraisal of what they might be worth to a collector. Check E-bay and see what they are going for in the "Collectibles" area if they have any listed there.

[ben10ben]

Unless they are really bad, I would suggest that you do not attempt to touch up the paint, and do nothing more than the light chemical rust removal. If you just want to display them, and they're really bad, I would suggest going to an auto parts store and having them match the paint. I would then strip them completely by boiling in laundry detergent, then remove the rust with a wire brush, and repaint them fresh.

Above all, if you have a valuable piece, it's worth far more in the stat that it's in than it would be if you restored it to like-new condition.

Can you post item numbers? I collect American Flyer in addition to Lionel, so I could look up the values.