stripping paint off Lionel locomotives

[Cliff Gallup]

I recently acquired a Lionel 671 PRR S-2 turbine (6-8-6) with the
Pennsylvania tender 2671W. A previous owner in their infinite wisdom
had decided to hand paint the locomotive and tender bodies light
green, and the trucks red. Any suggestions on what to use to attempt
to get the green paint off without hurting the original black (and
hopefully preserve the lettering/numbering as well)? The locomotive
shell is of course metal, and the tender body is plastic. I've had
success with MEK or Triple 1 before in removing paint-over-paint on
metal, but don't know if I should try it on this. I'd like to restore
it to original if possible, without repainting.

Thanks,

Cliff



................................................................
Posted via TITANnews - Uncensored Newsgroups Access

at http://www.TitanNews.com <<<<

-=Every Newsgroup - Anonymous, UNCENSORED, BROADBAND Downloads=-

[David J. Starr]

Post by Cliff Gallup
I recently acquired a Lionel 671 PRR S-2 turbine (6-8-6) with the
Pennsylvania tender 2671W. A previous owner in their infinite wisdom
had decided to hand paint the locomotive and tender bodies light
green, and the trucks red. Any suggestions on what to use to attempt
to get the green paint off without hurting the original black (and
hopefully preserve the lettering/numbering as well)? The locomotive
shell is of course metal, and the tender body is plastic. I've had
success with MEK or Triple 1 before in removing paint-over-paint on
metal, but don't know if I should try it on this. I'd like to restore
it to original if possible, without repainting.
Thanks,
Cliff

Any idea what kind of paint was used? You might be in luck if they
used water based house paint or poster paint. The original Lionel
finish was a chemical blackening process that was durable.
You might start off with the gentlest paint removers and work up the
scale until the stuff comes off. You might start with soapy water.
Tide laundry detergent has a good deal of tri sodium phosphate (TSP) in
it and will strip weakly put together paints. If you have access to an
ultra sonic cleaner, a solution of water and Tide might do the trick.
Or try a trip thru the kitchen dishwasher and see what happens.
Next step up is straight TSP, available from hardware stores. If that
doesn't do it, I might try isopropyl alcohol before stepping up to MEK
which is very active stuff. Keep MEK away from anything plastic, it
dissolves it. It will also dissolve linoleum floors. As a last resort,
the hardware store paint removers will cut thru any kind of paint except
maybe epoxy. They will also take off any lettering. I don't know what
it will do to the chemical blackening, but it might not be pretty.

David J. Starr

[Cliff Gallup]

Ok, thanks very much for the advice!

Cliff

On Sat, 21 Feb 2004 18:09:58 -0500, "David J. Starr"

Post by David J. Starr
Any idea what kind of paint was used? You might be in luck if they
used water based house paint or poster paint. The original Lionel
finish was a chemical blackening process that was durable.
You might start off with the gentlest paint removers and work up the
scale until the stuff comes off. You might start with soapy water.
Tide laundry detergent has a good deal of tri sodium phosphate (TSP) in
it and will strip weakly put together paints. If you have access to an
ultra sonic cleaner, a solution of water and Tide might do the trick.
Or try a trip thru the kitchen dishwasher and see what happens.
Next step up is straight TSP, available from hardware stores. If that
doesn't do it, I might try isopropyl alcohol before stepping up to MEK
which is very active stuff. Keep MEK away from anything plastic, it
dissolves it. It will also dissolve linoleum floors. As a last resort,
the hardware store paint removers will cut thru any kind of paint except
maybe epoxy. They will also take off any lettering. I don't know what
it will do to the chemical blackening, but it might not be pretty.
David J. Starr

................................................................
Posted via TITANnews - Uncensored Newsgroups Access

Post by David J. Starr

at http://www.TitanNews.com <<<<

-=Every Newsgroup - Anonymous, UNCENSORED, BROADBAND Downloads=-

[Geezer]

(snip)

The original Lionel finish was a chemical blackening process that was

durable.

Not completely correct. The boilers on all Lionel postwar steamers were
painted with a satin black baked-on enamel type paint, as were the die cast
chassis for the Berkshires and Turbines. The die cast separate cylinder
blocks, driver centers, metal truck sideframes, and some sheet metal parts
were chemically blackened.

I'm afraid that any process that will to remove the added paint will affect
the original Lionel paint surface underneath and leave uneven shades of
black and/or surface texture. Even if you are successful in removing the
added paint, you will have modified the original finish (adding and removing
the over paint), so the piece should properly receive a TCA "restored" tag
and should not be sold as a true factory original. That being the case, I'd
just take off all the paint with a paste type paint stripper from the
hardware store, and spray on a nice new even satin black finish. I find the
strippers do not do much to the blackened parts and that if they do, the
blackening can be restored with gun bluing compounds. GQ