restore or clean up these 603/604 Red Comet cars

The trains are certainly yours to do with as you please.
Were they mine, I would not even repaint the roofs.
Cleaning only.

Tell ya what, I'll clean em up  first and see if I can live with the roofs as is.

I'd clean, and run'm as is. If the four 600 cars I'm working on were in the same condition as this one, I'd let them be, but two were pretty rough.

and my green 1630s that I got for $1 each from a junk box only got painted roofs because the originals were MIA.

If they don't look good enough with clean roofs, then you can paint the roofs. If they don't look good enough with just the roofs painted then...

Doing it in small steps like that will allow you to get the maximum benefit from minimum effort and not go too far until you want to do so.

Clean 'em and run 'em.

The paint looks pretty good.

As stated above, you can do what you please

Personally I would just clean them first, replace missing parts, clean or replace the couplers.

To pull them I would look for a old prewar steam engine 259 or electric that have been repainted and in need of a better paint job (Red to match the cars). This way you will not feel bad when repainting.

Just have fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you have to take them apart to remove dents and fix the windows.. I would paint them...You only get one or two chances to take them apart before the tabs break. I like to bring them back to life with a new paint job. I restored 2 610s and a 612, put my grandsons family pictures in the windows, changed the cuplers  and made them into the  Ryder Express so he can run them with his post war Engines.

Little update, I cleaned up one 603 the other night and most all cleaned/ shined up really well.  The paint on the sides of the car body glistens in the sun.   Same with the roofs, they just have less paint on them lol.  The trucks, wheels, and couplers also polished up to like new with my favorite rag and some Brasso....  The other two cars in the set will be a little more painful as these were all smashed somewhat and the smashing pushed the floors up in the shell thus opening or in several cases destroying the floor tabs.  I'm gonna half to solder those, but I'll make that work without affecting the visible paint on the sides.  Yeah, for the engine, I have a couple of 264E's in shoe boxes that need rebuilt.... no shortage of she boxes here either.

looking good Dennis. If you don't want to risk the paint by soldering, a dab of JB would work.

Dennis hi, agree looking good with the clean up! My main concerns in dealing with/preserving/running vintage tinplate are;  first, rust on the body. Second, rust on running gear. Dents, how bad? Scratches, how much of the total surface area and does it make the piece look bad?  From looking at your photos- a clean up was wise. Ya can always repaint later but once done, the piece just loses something. If thinking of future generations, and how they might enjoy, your answer should be clear.

Your preference of course and enjoy! Thanks for posting.

John

Even though we have a couple of good sources for reproduction paint, the trains never have that 'something' that original paint has. Not that these little gems will ever be highly collectible (certainly not a State Set), but once painted, they are of no interest to anyone but you. (and that hasn't stopped me in the past!).

Funny how good quality reproductions would fetch 'VG' to EXC money in the 1970's, now you're lucky to get 'Good' money, and that has dropped. I suspect that the advent of MTH and Williams high quality reproductions pretty much killed the market for all but the very best original tinplate

Nice work, keep em original, if you decide you have to paint the roofs, I hope you get a good color match (or paint another color).

Jim

A case in point- this engine the rust was scattered all over it and worked underneath the tinplate. Had to remove the roof and re solder to get at all of it. Reminded me of mouse urine or battery acid damage. All the hardware is original and cleaned up great. The armature, commutator, windings were great and didn't have to touch other than some new brushes.

It ran when I first got it home and I looked at this engine for several weeks before making a final decision. The rust was driving me nuts. No way to stop it and since am not reselling went outside the norm with a paint scheme. Although did find traces of gold on the handrails that suggested factory.

I regret not taking before photos on this guy (usually do) but was it worth it? Yup. Did I lessen the value- highly doubt it, it wasn't worth much to start with.  However, had there been no rust would have left alone. Best runner I have to date.

Regards,

John