To paint or not to paint

If that was mine and had no special sentimental value, I would strip and repaint.  Patina is one thing, but that is roached-out as the American Picker guys would say.  I guess it comes down to whether you would operate or display it in that condition.

Good luck, Tim.

@PittsburghTim posted:

If that was mine and had no special sentimental value, I would strip and repaint.  Patina is one thing, but that is roached-out as the American Picker guys would say.  I guess it comes down to whether you would operate or display it in that condition.

Good luck, Tim.

I agree.

I've restored and/or customized many pre and post war trains in that condition and never looked back.

PM me if any of you want details

I an restoring four prewar tinplate cars/engine now. My best repaint results are from first cooking the tinplate in a mixture of hot water with powdered laundry soap (Tide). It strips down to the original metal then I can sand and treat the deep rust. I prime two coats and wet sand between them. Only then can the new color go on smoothly.   I heat the tabs with a soldering iron before straightening them for disassembly.

Steve

I agree on the repainting. You might be able to remove the sticker with a hair dryer and some tweezers.  That way you could reattach it when the repaint is done,  maybe even add a sticker to note your repainting at the date. 

This is a prewar American Flyer O gauge 478 boxcar that I restored as an adapter car.  Knuckle coupler on one end and link coupler on the other.  I painted it green and lettered it for Railway Express.  That way I can run it with both passenger and freight cars.

@Steve A posted:

I an restoring four prewar tinplate cars/engine now. My best repaint results are from first cooking the tinplate in a mixture of hot water with powdered laundry soap (Tide). It strips down to the original metal then I can sand and treat the deep rust. I prime two coats and wet sand between them. Only then can the new color go on smoothly.   I heat the tabs with a soldering iron before straightening them for disassembly.

Steve

I agree, Steve.

I thought that I was the only one who uses powdered Tide in hot water for stripping. The hotter the water the better for tin.

Not too hot for plastics as it will warp plastics

@Lionelski posted:

I agree, Steve.

I thought that I was the only one who uses powdered Tide in hot water for stripping. The hotter the water the better for tin.

Not too hot for plastics as it will warp plastics

Richard Sherry, a well-known train painter in Chicagoland, was using powdered Tide in the late 80s as demonstrated in this re-mastered T-M Toy Train Revue on how to re-paint a PW SF F-3 in the freight blue and yellow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQKkVak4XVk  (About the 6:00 mark)

I have seen much worse, but if I picked this up, I would get it running 100%, clean the body, replace missing parts and let it run as is.  But that is just me, I do have a 248 that just needed a set of new wheels that I got from the Traintender, was not missing anything, but was almost the same paint condition as yours.  I cleaned it, touch up painted the bare metal, and car waxed it.  I picked up a couple extra freight cars of that era for it to run as a freight and not just a passenger,  just to be different.

@DL Brunette posted:

I agree on the repainting. You might be able to remove the sticker with a hair dryer and some tweezers.  That way you could reattach it when the repaint is done,  maybe even add a sticker to note your repainting at the date.

Great idea.  But if you don't feel comfortable removing the sticker, what about sandblasting the exterior of the shell and just not repainting the interior?  I've seen restorations where the interior (or underside of the base) is left untouched so that there is no question about whether or not it's original.

Another option - take a close, sharp photo of the sticker, and make a replacement decal or sticker to apply after restoration.

Orange can be a tough variation to find, so I'd try to clean it up a bit more before a strip/repaint. Try using a bit of Meguiar's Cleaner Wax; you might be able to polish off most of the discoloration. If not, proceed to (b) strip/repaint.

Just my two cents...

PD

I decided to try to keep the original paint on the 248s if I could get them a lot cleaner than they were when I got them.  Using several suggestions from this forum and FB, I used spray Goo Gone with a Magic Eraser to get the grease and top layer of crud off.  Then some Bar Keeper's Helper with a soft, non-abrasive sponge got a lot of the remaining dirt and crud off.  I'm happy with the result and will continue to work to get them running again with the existing paint.  One of the motors ran right off the bat while the other needs some rewiring.

I'm not going to strip the 252 with the sticker inside - the exterior is in pretty good shape so I'm going to keep it as original as I can.

My fourth on-going project is an American Flyer 3107 which came to me as a 'display piece' or for parts.  It was in rough shape upon receipt, but I've started cleaning and rewiring the motor and will have to strip the shell because it was heavily rusted and had globs of some identified adhesive stuck to it.  This morning I finished rewiring the manual reverse unit to the brushes.

Now to order parts, lots and lots of wheels to start with...

Hey, those cleaned up pretty good!

PD