The first car arrived this morning. It is the 2532 Silver Range. I have some questions.
1. The aluminum is a bit dirty. What can I use to polish it easily?
2. The black letters appear faded or washed out. They are stamped into the nameplates, and the nameplates are riveted on. What can I use to restore the letters?
Thanks for any info.
Jim,
Try automotive polishing compound or Mother's mag wheel cleaner for the aluminum. I suppose you could also use Never Dull or Flintz as well.
For the lettering, you might need to scan the words, clean up the lettering on your computer, and make a clear decal.
If the words are stamped INTO the plate, just repaint them by filling in each depression with black paint. Some paint thinner on a brush to remove any paint slip ups won't harm the name plate.
Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
Thanks for the tips. I tried Never Dull, but I had difficulty polishing it out of the ribs. So, I used Zud and a toothbrush. It worked quite well. I am using a black fine tip Sharpie marker to fill in the letters. After I use it, I rub the nameplate with a pencil eraser to remove unwanted ink from the surface of the nameplate. thanks again.
I don't know how much this applies here, but will post anyway. Aluminum is very difficult to paint. If the number boards on the passenger cars are aluminum, they probably didn't take paint very well when they were made, and the ink you are using probably has almost a better chance of sticking, than paint would.
My car has an aluminum hood, and the paint sticks very well. Back in the day, though, aluminum was very difficult to paint. This may be the reason postwar Lionel aluminum wasn't painted. Think 2500 series passenger cars, and even the 675/3025 aluminum smoke stacks weren't painted. Another example would be WWll aircraft. They gave up painting them after about 1944. Yes it saved weight not to paint them, and the camaflouge(sp) wasn't really working anyway, but the paint just didn't stick at the time. Al-clad was a simpler process at the time to protect the aircraft sheetmetal. Fast-forward to MPC-era Lionel. The NYC, Southern Pacific daylight, and UP aluminum passenger cars were all painted, and had many customer complaints for mismatch and flaking.
Today, epoxy paints and primers have solved the problem. They are fairly dangerous to work with, as was zinc chromate primer of older times. The epoxy works much better though. Another little tid-bit: You can find a soda can or beer can in a ditch that may have been laying there for over 20 years, and the paint is still there. It is there because it is a thin coat. The more paint you apply to aluminum, the less likely it is to stick. The paint you see on these cans are really more like an ink. Don't believe me, next time you drink a can of soda, paint the can, let it dry, and you can scrape it off with your fingernail. If you really don't believe me, sand the can first, then paint. You can still scrape it off with your fingernail.
Anyway, I think using ink to fix the lettering on your 2500 passenger car is probably the way to go. Don't even get me started on laquer finishes...
Jim
The greatest stuff I ever used (and I did a set of 4 of these cars) is called MAAS. You can sometimes find it in Home Depot in a silver tube. Use very sparingly on an old towel. Stay away from the number boards (mask with tape if you want to avoid taking off the black paint). My tarnished, stained cars came up like chrome!
Really good stuff.
Thanks. I'll look for it at Lowes, then if they don't have it I'll go to HD. Was it hard to remove from the ribs?
Hello, the aluminum cars are quite easy to shine up...just dont leave any residue on them...its a dead give away that they have been cleaned from the original luster...I have never cleaned my cars...i like the original shine and as far as value..nto sure if it will hurt the value of them if you clean and scrubb the aluminum...oh well...thanks..enjoy those passenger cars
You're giving me a hankering for some post war aluminum passenger cars! Stop putting ideas in my head!
I just sent you a PM about the silver.
You use enough to get down into the fluting and rub a while - the stuff works really well. You will notice some of the MAAS turning black, this is removing the 'rust'.
You'll like the way it comes out, makes it look like some of the newer Lionel product.
I haven't had the chance to go to HD yet. I did try some Brasso, and that brought all of the cars to a point where they shine, but not so much that the look like chrome. They have a clean, but slightly aged look. These cars have to be some of the nicest cars made during PW years.
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