# New Life for a Lionel 1654T Tender



## santafe158 (Jul 14, 2010)

I thought you guys might like to see a project I'm working on.

I know I posted the 1688 Torpedo and tender from 1939 that we got at an estate sale a couple weeks ago. It has the prewar trucks and latch coupler so it's limited to prewar tinplate cars only. A member of another forum was nice enough to send me a 1654T sheetmetal tender with postwar trucks at no charge , as long as I posted the progress on it on that forum. It's getting repainted to match the 1688 (or close enough to it), so I can pull my postwar or modern cars with it. So far I've cleaned up the trucks with a wire dremel wheel and I'm starting the stripping process. I'm trying a gel type stripper (3M?) that I found in our paint cabinet and so far it seems to be working. It's just got to sit a little longer.

Some pictures.

The engine and original tender.









The new tender

















I'll keep you posted with progress. If you have any ideas as to what spray paint would be a close match to the engine color, let me know.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

There was mention of a site where they will sell you custom Lionel colors for $15 for a spray can, might be worth looking into.


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

John's right ... see posts 18, 19 in this recent thread ...

http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showthread.php?p=115303&postcount=18

SantaFe, I'd be quite keen to learn if you find a good gunmetal spray match. Try the source in the link above, maybe?

TJ


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## santafe158 (Jul 14, 2010)

I'll look into it. I'm trying to go the cheap route with this one, but I might go all out on it too


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

The gunmetal color is a tricky one to try to match with your standard box-store inventory ... not a close match (that I know of) in the basic Krylon or Rustoleum rattle can line.


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## santafe158 (Jul 14, 2010)

Well, I'll look around and see if I find anything locally that comes close anyway. If not, I'll probably be looking into the replica colors.


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## santafe158 (Jul 14, 2010)

Well, it's finally stripped (mostly, might have a little cleanup work to do still). I had to grit my teeth when I scraped the Lionel Lines lettering off. Such a hard task to do. Hopefully it'll come out good and I'll feel better about it .

After a couple evenings worth of soaking in paint stripper, hand sanding, a wire brush in a dremel and a sandpaper cylinder on a dremel, it's pretty much ready to paint. I'm going to blast the dust off with our air compressor tomorrow and I'll hopefully be priming it soon. I'm going on a camping trip this weekend so it'll probably be next week or the week after (when I have winter break and a lot of time).

Here's a picture. It's just sitting on it's trucks and I set the shell on top of the frame.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I'd suggest next time you try the oven cleaner, it takes more than that off in one night in the soup.


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## santafe158 (Jul 14, 2010)

We just have the spray easy off cleaner (maybe that's what you're talking about). I was just working with what I have in the workshop.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I use the stuff you paint on with a brush, but I suspect the spray would work as well. I douse it, then stick it in a zip-lock bag overnight. Take it out with rubber gloves, and hit it with a stiff brush to remove the paint, rinse and it should be stripped.


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## santafe158 (Jul 14, 2010)

Ah, the bag is what I never did. I tried the oven cleaner method on some schwinn stingray bike parts I was working on, but it didn't work. Apparently I left out an important ingredient.  I'll put it in a bag with some oven cleaner tonight and maybe the paint will be gone tomorrow morning. That would be nice and would make my prep work a whole lot easier.


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## santafe158 (Jul 14, 2010)

Good suggestion. It's been sitting in the soup for about 5 minutes and I can already see the paint coming off. Should be clean by tomorrow morning. Wish I would have done that earlier.


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

EasyOff makes two versions of spray oven cleaner ... a blue can that's touted as "no smell" or something like that, and a yellow can that's touted as "heavy duty".

Use the YELLOW CAN ... much more powerful than the blue stuff. I've used it on all of my tinplate projects with great success.

TJ


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## santafe158 (Jul 14, 2010)

I've got lemon scented..... :laugh:

The stuff I used says "Fume Free MAX" in a blue(?) can. We've had it awhile so maybe they don't even make it anymore. Seems to be working for the little bit of paint that was left on the parts. They're coming clean already, a rinse in the laundry tub tomorrow morning should clean the last of the paint off.


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## santafe158 (Jul 14, 2010)

Wow, that worked great. Paint came right off with the help of a toothbrush today.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

The oven cleaner is some nasty stuff, but great for taking off paint.  Credit TJ for that suggestion, I did it after he mentioned it.


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

TJ bounces the credit ball over to T-Man ... :thumbsup:


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I wasn't sure who started that, but it's a great method.


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## santafe158 (Jul 14, 2010)

Well, I got sick of staring at a primered tender shell on my workbench so for now it's an auxiliary water car for my steam locomotives because I still haven't found a close enough match for the gunmetal on the torpedo. I just painted it black with a couple coats of clear coat on it (not the neatest paint job, there are some runs, but it's OK). I mounted a postwar coupler mechanism to the truck that formerly had the drawbar mounted on top of it (easily returned to original). If I find a good gunmetal paint, I'll redo it for the torpedo. For now, it'll get used and won't be taking up useful space on my workbench.


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## tjcruiser (Jan 10, 2010)

santafe158 said:


> ...because I still haven't found a close enough match for the gunmetal on the torpedo.


Santa Fe,

We were talking about the prewar color-matched paints that Hobby Horse Products offered over in this thread ...

http://www.modeltrainforum.com/showthread.php?p=115303&postcount=18

Gunmetal is on their list. By chance, did you try tracking down some from them, only to find that it wasn't to your liking???

I haven't ordered from them, but I'm hoping to give their gunmetal a shot later this spring.

TJ


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## santafe158 (Jul 14, 2010)

I just don't want to risk ordering a color (not the cheapest stuff) from the internet and finding out when it's too late that it's not the right color. Otherwise it would be done already 

I was looking at Hennings(?) restoration colors. I got a match from the owner of the shop, but it's really hard to tell what color it really is based on the color on the screen so I haven't ordered any yet. If you try the gunmetal and it works, please let me know.


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## T-Man (May 16, 2008)

I noticed you staple end trucks. I find the axles are longer than they need to be. With the staple end not being the best ,s Shortening the axle helps the ease of assembly. The truck joints do "tend"  to loosen up.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

Well, I live right around the corner from Hennings. I wonder if he'd spray a sample and I could send it to you.


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## santafe158 (Jul 14, 2010)

They sell paint color sheets with samples on them, but I don't really want to spend the money  He said the Light Gunmetal is what I need for this, but it's hard to tell. I may have to give in and buy a sample sheet.


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