Does anyone know what glue is used to hold down coal loads on MTH Premier steam locomotives? Is there a way to remove/dissolve the glue, to remove the coal load, without damaging the surrounding paint?
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I've never tried it but I think the glue may be water soluble. Try some water and see if it loosens up.
MELGAR
@MELGAR posted:I've never tried it but I think the glue may be water soluble. Try some water and see if it loosens up.
MELGAR
I would but I can't. I don't have the subject tender in front of me to check. All my Premier steam is oil fired and the tenders have no coal load. I'm looking at picking up a locomotive that should have been oil fired but was mistakenly produced with a coal load. I'd like to remove the coal load and add the correct details to the top of the tender to make it oil fired. I want to know if it's possibly to easily remove the coal load or not first.
I just bought a new Lionel Legacy 2-8-2. When it arrived, the coal pile in the tender had been damaged. There was a “hard” crust on top, but the coal underneath was loose.
I would say they probably use a white glue type adhesive, the same way we ballast our tracks. White dries clear and glossy so it would work.
Maybe warm water will loosen the coal pile...
Tom
I highly doubt it’s any kind water soluble glue like plain ol fashion white glue....the preconception that since we use white glue for scenery purposes, it must be what they use for coal piles in tenders is not 100% reliable....the engineers that design these toys have to take in consideration storage, humidity, and overall climate....besides, white glue has a much lower adhesion characteristic than a chemical glue would have....my bet is it’s some sort of thinned down epoxy.....otherwise, anybody in any kind of uncontrolled environment that keeps his/her trains in would have mounds falling off.....white glue is easily picked away....sometimes I use white glue as a paint mask for super intricate areas.....easily picked away and peeled off.......
I’ve got an email into one of the MTH engineers.....we’ll get to the bottom of this ( coal pile ) 😄
Pat
I was cleaning a Williams brass 2-8-2 tender the other day and the hot water from the faucet made the coal load come out it pieces, so put something in the drain to keep the coal from washing away.
@Bob Delbridge posted:I was cleaning a Williams brass 2-8-2 tender the other day and the hot water from the faucet made the coal load come out it pieces, so put something in the drain to keep the coal from washing away.
I had a similar experience with a wet coal load on a Lionel locomotive. Just letting the water evaporate caused the coal particles to re-adhere. That's why I wrote that the glue is water soluble.
MELGAR
All of the above examples are Lionel or Williams. What about MTH? There has been nothing specific to what MTH uses, and it may be different than what Lionel or anyone else uses.
To put this to bed, I took a damaged Premier shell and put it in hot water....nothing....not a piece budged...let it soak, nothing....ran it under hot tap water.....nothing....MTH uses something that’s not water soluble....hopefully I hear back from the fella at MTH....I’ll let you know straight from the horse’s mouth...
Pat
I rescued some engines from the Sandy floods, they had been submerged for several days in salt water. I washed them in water, they got a pretty good soaking again. My experience is the same as Pat's, the coal load on the two tenders I had didn't budge, even with the salt water soak and my cleanup efforts.
I also noticed the paint that MTH used on their chassis for diesels was much more robust than the stuff that Lionel uses. The MTH paint was undamaged by the salt water, the Lionel paint was coming off in sheets!
A long time ago I upgraded a 20-3018 K4 to ERR. To avoid grinding the tender shell, I buried the antenna in the coal pile. I was able to scrape the factory "real coal load" off with hot water and a kitchen knife. I'm 90% sure it was secured by something like white glue. Some coal and glue ended up in the garbage disposal. For years afterward, every time I ran the dishwasher the water would back up into the sink, and floating in it were little bits of train coal!
