Marx Commodore Vanderbuilt

As I stated, it's pretty rough, but here's a few pictures I snapped of it:

There was some white "corrosion" around the domes, the stack, and where the nose attached to the body. Most of that came off very easily. I think the grey is primer, and it seems to be on there pretty good, but so far, not as good as the copper "paint"  Hopefully I can reassemble it (whatever the outcome) without damaging any of the tabs.

J White

Apologize for not replying with a helpful post, but those Commodore Vanderbilts have creeped me out since I was a kid.

It's kind of a nostalgic creep-out these days

Jason

I am not aware of any true copper CV's or any other Marx train. The Mercury Copper Queen nose piece was copper or copper plated, bet the rest was painted black. For the copper cars, Marx used highly polished tin, then coated it with an amber varnish or shellac that gave it the copper appearance. Try polishing it with Brasso. I'd be surprised if it is really copper, but never say never with toy trains from just before the war. All the manufacturers were using up whatever they could get their hands on.

Steve

now that's the way I like'm. needing some TLC.

Thanks for the idea of using Brasso. I will give it a try and report back.

J White

Well, this was just as suspected. It was a pretty bad repaint. The paint was thickly applied, but it looks like all the trim was removed prior to the paint job. That threw me off, as all the trim was tight (except the smokestack, but it was missing the red lens anyway). A bit of Brasso took some of the copper paint down to primer and down to the black paint where there was already a gouge down to the steel. 

If the weather ever gets nice enough to work on this outdoors, it now has a date with some paint stripper. I am planning on repainting it a bright red to pull my new Marx Christmas cars around the tree next year. Can anyone recommend a rattle can that comes close to the red 6" frames? I am debating whether to try to use a red frame or just repaint a black frame .

thanks for the help,

J White