Now that I have your attention.
I came into a collection of PRSL M O W photos that are mostly old X23 and XL boxcars. For a while I was on the hunt for completed R7 cars at which I wound up with 3 of them. I have 1 that is pretty good, 1 that is **really** nice, and 1 that well, looked a lot better on eBay than when I opened the box. The not so good R7 recently became a candidate for an almost X23 M O W. "Almost" because the X23 does not have a signboard on it. This car was built with the signboard flat on the side & is not easily removable. The side ribs are cut short to the bottom of the signboard - not really correct. It was painted - and very badly with a brush. I have never tried to strip a wood car before. In the ancient days before I got my blast booth I used auto paint thinner to strip cars. (Actually I still use it at times) If the car was really difficult I used something called Tal-Strip. It is a foamy gel spray that if you got it on you could count to 6 and it will tell you exactly where it was. That most difficult car I remember using the Tal Strip on was a Jade Green RRM bay window caboose I stripped for Don DeWitt to became Conrail. Until that point **everything** surrendered to the Tal Strip. That Jade Green put up a fight like I had never seen. It figures that something associated with the Mighty New York Central would be difficult.. So with a "nothing to lose" attitude I decided to give the R7/X23 a liberal Tal Strip bath. I donned my "chemical resistant" household cleaning gloves, gave it a good coat and waited for the paint to fall off. After a while it was not happening so much so I started to scrub with a toothbrush. The paint was annoyed but it was not going anywhere. Another couple of coats and some more scrubbing I thought maybe that was not a good idea. The Tal Strip is water soluble so I knew I would find out what happened to a wood car when at least temporarily dunked under running water. I figured it was time to quit when I noticed pieces of my GLOVE were now coating the car in the gooey paint/paint stripper gel mess with my thumb now fully exposed. Under the water in my utility sink it went. The paint mostly stood firm and was more resistant than that previously pesky Jade Green.. The water softened some of the wood glue used to assemble the car. In some cases that was a good thing. There are some small strips I have to glue back on. After it dried a bit I went over the car with my Dremel and a wire brush. That was pretty successful in removing more paint and exposing the simulated wood siding that was mostly slopped over in paint. And so that is where the car currently sits for now, in need of more attention. This is going to be a good enough quick n dirty project until the day a better X23 hopefully becomes available. It is most unlike me to work with wood and plastic with brass in the same year! I can evolve and adapt! Thank You, Bill Lane Modeling the Mighty Pennsy & PRSL in 1957 in S Scale since 1988 See my finished models at: <http://www.lanestrains.com/> http://www.lanestrains.com Look at what has been made in PRR in S Scale! Custom Train Parts Design <http://www.lanestrains.com/SolidWorks_Modeling.htm> http://www.lanestrains.com/SolidWorks_Modeling.htm PRR Builders Photos Bought, Sold & Traded (Trading is MUCH preferred) <http://www.lanestrains.com/PRRphotos.xls> http://www.lanestrains.com/PRRphotos.xls ***Join the PRR T&HS*** The other members are not ALL like me! <http://www.prrths.com/> http://www.prrths.com <http://www.lanestrains.com/PRRTHS_Application.pdf> http://www.lanestrains.com/PRRTHS_Application.pdf Join the Pennsylvania Reading Seashore Lines Historical Society It's FREE to join! <http://www.prslhs.com/> http://www.prslhs.com Preserving The Memory Of The PRSL [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
