Repairing Brent's Trains

[Jumijo]

 

Some new progress to report today.

Here are a few photos of the tender shell. The mold was put in place and a slurry of plastic and liquid model cement was poured into the damaged area. I made the liquified plastic have the consistency of thick pancake batter so it wouldn't bleed out of the mold. Basically, once it was poured, it stayed where it landed. If all goes well, the end result will be a near perfect replacement for the broken area.

I'll let this harden for a day or two before removing the mold. Hopefully the molded plastic part for the tender will not shrink.

 

The vista dome's wheels were covered with crud. I seriously doubt if anyone ever cleaned their train's wheels in the post war era. So the first step was to clean them with a wire wheel in a Dremel tool. They came out shiny, almost chrome-like. No more crud. I also cleaned up the pickup roller while I was at it.

The next step was to re-blacken the wheels. I used an inxepensive gun blueing liquid applied with a cotton swab.

That's all the progress that was made today.

[phillyreading]

I opened up the car last night and saw no water damage or rust any where. The interior is very clean. I doubt that water damage did this to the paint.

When you look at the stain and the truck, it makes one wonder if this isn't alkaline battery damage...

Could be alkaline battery but looks more like rusty water from a heating system pipe that leaked.  I think that alkaline battery may have damged the plastic shell too.

Lee F.

[dbaker48]

This is real interesting, its like being in an observation deck watching surgery being performed?  (never done that either)  Very well documented process.  I'm impressed.

[rtraincollector]

I was thinking just the tender as he could then say hes got a girls set tender lol

[Anonymous]

 

I'll do that RRT. Do you think that's enough to get both cars painted? 

[Jumijo]

 

I'll do that RRT. Do you think that's enough to get both cars painted? 

[rtraincollector]

Hey Jim if you need some 2037 girls train Pink let me know I have about half a 1/2 pint can you can get

[Anonymous]

I opened up the car last night and saw no water damage or rust any where. The interior is very clean. I doubt that water damage did this to the paint.

When you look at the stain and the truck, it makes one wonder if this isn't alkaline battery damage...

[Anonymous]

Wow... you've made more progress in 1 day than I did in 4 years!

Can't wait to see them when they are done!

[Jumijo]

I opened up the car last night and saw no water damage or rust any where. The interior is very clean. I doubt that water damage did this to the paint.

[Anonymous]

Jim,

       I can't wait to see what it looks like when you get it done.  Did you get my email from Shutterfly? 

[Jumijo]

 

I was able to photograph Brent's tender and vista dome this afternoon. This serves to establish a starting point and documents how the cars looked when I got them.

The purpose of these repairs is not to restore the train cars to like new condition. Rather it is to bring them back up to a respectable level of presentation, consistent with the other trains in Brent's collection.

Here is the worst part of the vista dome. The paint is completely gone from the upper corner. I have no idea how or why this happened. Some oxidation is evident on the truck.

 

Another small spot missing paint on the same side.

 

Scratches on the roof

 

Trucks and wheels need cleaning and re-bluing

 

The tender has a hole that needs filling. It appears the object seen inside the hole did the damage, perhaps in a fall.

 

Side view of the tender

 

Top view showing paint loss

 

This side view shows parts of 2 letters gone. They need to be re-painted to look like stamping.

 

Donor shell with latex caulk in same relative position as hole. When the caulk is dry, it will act as a mold to cast a new part from. As the bottom photo shows, this is not Brent's damaged shell.

 

The next step is disassembly and cleaning.