Lionel 610 almost finished

Today, I assembled the Lionel 610 passenger car. I gave it new couplers, but for the rest all the old parts have been cleaned and re-used. The car was an utter wreck without a roof when it arrived and it is nice to see it in this condition now. The only things left to do is getting the decals, repainting the roof once more and getting the light sorted out. The interior lighting works, but the lamp does not shine steady, so somewhere the is a loose connection from ground of the lamp to the wheels.

Lionel 812

This Lionel 812 pre-war gondola just reached me in time. A few additional years of wear would have made it non-restorable: just for parts. The 800 series freight cars have been made with thicker steel sheets than the cheaper 600 and 1600 series. That has saved this car. During my usual cleaning ritual holes dropped in the car floor. The rust has gone completely through. It makes you wonder was must have happened to this car. Had it been lying out in the rain for a couple a years? It sure would explain the significant rusting. I will have to cut out a major part of the car's floor and replace it with brass plate soldered in.
One day this car will shine again, but it can take a few months!

Lionel 1722

Recently I acquired a Lionel 1722 pre-war caboose in poor condition. It is rusting, the paint and lithographed picture are poor. And most strikingly it misses a top roof. The top roof used on this model were pretty daft. There were only windows to the sides and not to the front and back. Since, I didn't have a top roof anyway, I decided to be a bit more creative and make a top roof myself from brass plates.
One of the obstacles to make a nice top roof is the wobbly roof itself. It has been folded up and a break / twist line runs diagonal of the middle section. This needs to be evened out by hammering. The triangular missing part of the roof has been filled with solder and brass.
So, there is plenty to restore on this one. The most difficult part will be restoring the lithograph. The current plan is paint the body red, use masking tape and paint the windows and ovale symbols yellow and then to laser print black decals for all the rivets etc. I never done this before, so it is quiet a challenge.

Spray painting the 610 passenger car

After looking at the webpages of Terry Gibbs, I decided that red body, cream windows, black tanks and trucks and a maroon roof would look the best for my 610 passenger car. So, I started of spray painting. I like to apply double layers; first one layer, then drying in a transparent drying box with a Tyvek window in the sun and after 30 minutes another layer and then 3 days of drying. I used to work with a Bagder airbrush set, but I like the large spray gun better. This handles thicker paints that dry faster and smoother. The disadvantage is that the spray can takes more paint and the paint tube is longer and both need to be cleaned intensely afterwards. Anyway, I like the large spray gun better. So, today I finished with red, cream and black. I just have to do the maroon roof. I will wait for the 1722 to be ready for spray painting, so that I can paint two roofs maroon simultaneously.