corrosion on tin-plate

After dissembling the 259E engine completely, I stripped the paint by immersing the parts in boiling soap water for 30 minutes. The black paint just fell off by stirring the hot liquid along the items. Although there was little corrosion visible from the train in the original state, it is very obvious after stripping. Here on the photo you see the roof part of the cab and many fine brown lines are visible. These crooked rust lines that start at defects in the tin plating and form pin-hole defects. The ironoxide (rust) formed under the tin coating pushes the coating upwards, forms more defects and the rusting starts to walk over the surface forming webs of crooked lines. Much like moles digging tunnels just beneath the surface of a meadow. Nice to see and beautiful for metal-chemists, but a danger for my toy train. So, I will bring out the brass brush and sanding paper to get rid off these corrosion lines and then prime the lot with corrosion retarding paint.

Lionel 259E

A few months ago, I found a Lionel 259E engine in relative poor condition on Ebay. Precisely good for Lionel's junkyard. When it arrived two things were crystal clear: 1 much work would be necessary to get this engine running again and 2 what a beautiful detail this engine has. Basically the engine block and the drivers were covered with rust, dust and hardened grease. The boiler front was bent and the rear truck was missing. When placed on tracks it didn't move an milliinch and only made some rumbles and noices.

Yesterday, I disassembled the engine and cleaned the engine. First, with a cloth and toluene / white spirits to remove the black tacky hardened grease and then with a brass brush to remove the residue. Oh boy, my hands were black! The brushes are relatively thick and have a scratched surface. I sanded them gently and placed them back for the moment. Eventually they need to be replaced. The armature was cleaned and then everything was lubed again. I placed a LED light bulb in the socket and that lighthed directly, but the engine did not do a thing. The wires are in poor condition. They are old cotton covered and this crumbles when you touch them. For the moment I protected a few open spots with insulation tape, but it is clear that I need to get the soldering gun ready for rewiring. Then I focussed on the E-unit. I unscrewed it and dust fell out. After light shaking two small corroded copper rings fell out. The drum had been fully disintegrated! No wonder that the engine did not move. I cleaned the E-unit out and found that the plunger was stuck. After more cleaning and lubing it started to move again. Next, I placed a new drum in the E-unit and worked a little more on getting the plunger falling freely down again and yes the engine runs again!

It is a relief and a feeling of satisfaction in one. The engine has made many loops already on my layout and the E-unit is still not 100% OK ( a few times forward motion is passed), but it runs and runs good. Surprisingly, relatively high voltages are needed to get her moving, but then she runs smoothly. This high initial electric potential could be related to the poor brushes. Next the rewiring needs to be done and after that the engine need a rear truck and a good derusting treatment. Priming and repainting will be necessary and since many of the brass pieces lost their luster, these need to be polished or replaced as well. Papa-Les-Trains placed some really nice photo's of a restored 259E on the web and I do not think I will get it so far, but I will try to bring her close. It just will take a few months.

Decal trouble

Progress on the Lionel 1722 caboose is much slower than hoped for. First there was trouble getting the yellow paint decently on the red body and now it proves difficult to get the decal on without wrinkels, bubbles and nasty reflections on side view. I used Clear Trimfilm 02-0 of Microscale Industries Inc. Hitherto that always worked nice, but these were relatively smaller surfaces (square quarter of an inch etc.). This is the first time that I really wanted to cover the complete side of a car (about 10 x 2.5 inch) and then it really gets difficult to cover the full surface without: wrinkels, gas bubbles, water pockets. The transfer of these water slide decals was improved slightly by adding dish washing liquid to the water, but not enough, still nasty reflections are visible in side view, probably caused by an insufficient contact between the paint and the decal, which cause thin bubbles to form.
Well, I do not like it and and will probably start all over with an another decal material. I do not know which one yet, but I am going to look for it. There must be something out there that works better than this. Any tips are appreciated.