Set out to reinventory my passenger car fleet to reflect changes and deletions/additions. Got to the little plastic car box I had my steam generator car stored in and this is what presented itself to me. What tha????? Well the first thing that came to mind is mold. However this has been stored in a HVAC environment and not gotten wet. Plus there is no sign of this on the roof or ends or bottom. Just the brass sides. Haven't tried to remove anything yet. Car is constructed of cut down American Limited Core Kit and a cut down and modified Brass Car side. The brass was cleaned and prepped prior to beginning work about a year ago. Paint is Flouquil, decals are MicroScale, and finish was glosscoat to prep for decaling and dullcoat, both testors, to finish and seal. Any ideas?
Maybe the paint or the glosscoat didn't completely dry before you stored it, and the container was airtight enough for the fumes to remain and it slowly affected the paint? Does the other side look the same? Which side was the car stored on?
Yikes! I am thinking along the same lines as Traindork has suggested. It will be interesting to know what happened.
Was this stored in a foam insert? Sometimes, different types of foams will react poorly over time with adjacent objects, including our models.
A similar thing will happen to Arnold S2s. I believe it has to do with failing to prime the metal with a metal primer. One of my S2s has bubbling paint and the side-sill has the white crusty spots. The plastic areas are fine.
Well after slaving over a hot grill and some steaks and lobster tails for supper, Wife's birthday, I finally got to look at it some more. The problem seems to involve the surface finish and not be coming from the brass side, in fact I just was able to peer in through the end doors at the brass inside and see no issues there. Using a metal dental pick I was able to remove some of the encrustation and see that I had intact paint beneath. Now going over all the materials I used I come up with the following list. Flouquil paint, ACC to attach sides to plastic body. Plastruct Plastic Weld for the plastic body components. Mirco Kristal Klear to attach glazing to windows, Testors dullcoat and glosscoat, and finally Micro Sol and Micro Set for the decals. Now the ACC I can eliminate since the window glazing remains clear. The whole car assembly process took over a week in stages and the car set on the workbench at least another two weeks before being placed in a clean plastic car box. The car box is not airtight and only some clean folded paper towels were in the box for cushioning. There is no fogging of the plastic car box and the paper towel was not stuck to the car and remains clean. And yes both sides of the car have equal buildup in spots. The box that the carbox was in also had other cars in it, some done around the same time as the heater car. There is no sign of any problem with the finish on those cars. And as I previously stated the storage was in my workroom/office which has year round HVAC. And now the fun part. Notice in the photo the ladders at the right which are supposed to go from stirrup step to roof. Those are Micro Trains caboose ladders made of Delrin plastic and the middle on both sides have deteriorated and a small part of one of the short ladders has also deteriorated some. I found the pieces in the paper towel when I unpacked it. Now what in the tarnation can destroy delrin? After picking at the spots for awhile I took it to the sink and scrubbed it with an old toothbrush and hot water and all the encrustation came off leaving the paint intact except for a spot or two where I got too vigorous with the dental pick. After drying I can noticed that the finish is splotchy in the areas where there was encrustation. Now about the only thing I can figure is usually on something this small and dealing with glazing already installed I will brush my final dullcoat sealer on rather than spray. Could possibly have been a contaminant on the brush when I did that. Other than that wild possibility I am at a loss. This is a first time I have had an issue like this in over forty years of building and bashing stuff. Since the roof, underframe, and ends are okay I have already stripped some of the stuff off the sides and now I have to see if I can get the brass side loose from the body without any damage and redo them.
John - Delrin can be destroyed by acetic acid (vinegar) which is also what is commonly used as decal setting solutions. The mild acid could also account for the encrustations and even possibly some mild pitting on the brass, if it made its way though all the paint. Bleach, lacquer thinner and a host of inorganic materials can also cause problems with Delrin. I would bet that the paper towel had a small amount of one of the three named items, very slightly damp, when you put it in the box. Delrin is a great polymer with fantastic durability, but I've seen a team of mechanical engineers struggle with why it was deforming and softening on a manufacturing line, and then their second line manager (me), with a PhD in chemistry put them to shame by asking them chemical questions. No one had checked the solvent compatibility! Took a chemist to even think of it.
Well you may have hit on it. Since the Micro Set is also a decal remover and I have used it for that purpose. I also have noticed that if it sits for awhile it will cause blemishes on the finish and eventually will remove the paint. Now in the several weeks gap between when I did the car and it sat, and then when I put it in the box I could have possibly gotten some on the paper towel I used as a temporary cushion until I got another car box to store my newest batch of cars in. The fact that it was in its own plastic box and the other cars sharing the same larger box were also in individual boxes may be why I see nothing on them. As a postscript I did get the sides off with a sharp #11 exacto blade without damage and stripped down to do again, dang it anyhow. Problem is I had to cobble bits and pieces of GN decals and alphabets to do this car. Oh well into each life some rain must fall.
John, I hope you do find the offending material soon, then you can advise us what to avoid! Regards, Pete Davies
I tend to support the acetic acid theory which is more or less validated by the deterioration of the Delrin plastic ladders. Add in the fact that it was enclosed within it's own box for some time and exposed to those vapors while the other cars were in thier own boxes and probably protected since it was most probably a small amount. Now the how and why I will probably never know of the introduction of what may have have been Micro Set at the time. Maybe a slight spill I don't remember or any other possiblity. I do use Acetic Acid for metal prep occassionaly in its mildest form of White Vinegar so It could have even been a drop of vinegar. So at this point the case is closed with the able efforts and knowledge of the folks on Trainboard. Corrective actions? Well I need to hurry up and get my self relocated to bigger digs with more ample workspace to keep projects better separated.
Hey, we still have 5 minutes and two commercial breaks left on Trainboard: CSI. But the decals and the areas underneath them, where you used the most Micro Set, are pretty much unaffected, per the photo. And you said (at least part of) the underlying layers of paint were intact, so the brass prep is likely not it. I would pin it on some kind of surface contamination, and a one-time thing at that based on your check of other projects. As for the delrin . . . ? Beyond that, I say it's Colonel Mustard in the drawing room with a candlestick.
Well its water under the bridge and the dive teams haven't found the murder weapon so its in the cold case file. Sides were stripped, primed, baked. Then a fresh coat of E.B. Green was applied and baked in fact three coats with baking in between each coat. So probably today I will prepare the surface for decals again and maybe by this week end a heater car will be available. It is cold out in Eastern Mont. and Western Dakota this time of year.
You know, you could probably sell the above photo on Etsy: "Glenn Curtiss flies over abstract forms."
John, I finally read this thread (the title didn't make me curious...lol) BUT...your problem here is the Testors product...the good ol' Dullcote and glosscoat.... Folks in the plastic model building fields have pretty much abandoned the laquer based Testors products for years now...for reasons you're dealing with in this situation...it has/had been the default dullcote for so many years, that many in the modell railroad modelling field have never really known any thing else.. What the plastic modeller folks have found is.... - that, over time, a few years, regular Testors Glosscote and dullcote can yellow.. -that batches of dullcote have 'tuerned' or gone bad, not providing a dull finish at all, but, rather, a frosty mess... -that, with all the dis-similar paint and finish formulas being used today, The laquer based dullcote does not react well with all of them... apart from some stalwarts, the gloss and dullcote torches have been transferred to acrylics, for a variety of good reasons, superior finishes, with more stability' easier clean-up and stripping if something goes 'amiss' no evidence of age 'reaction' or yellowing much less toxic and easier to obtain Pollyscale and Testors Model master brands are superior, and thin with isopropyl alcohol another gloss medium that has been used, with incredible success, is Future Floor 'wax'...it was sold in the bottle, perfectly clear...remember the old Future ads..."won't Yellow!"....plastic aircraft modellers have been using Future as THE 'go-to' glosscoat before decalling AND another coat after decalling to completely hide the carrier film before a weathering process... Future is also used to 'dip' clear canopies...it has a property that makes clear parts gloss even more, even making them more 'clear'... I've used it before...but underlying paint MUST be fully cured I swear by the acrylic gloss and flat coats... even the old floquil and current Floquil enamel/laquer products are 'in the past' for me...as much as I liked their spray qualities...their reaction with ANY other type of products just made them so limiting...Testors dullcotes were the only dull coats that could be applied relatively safely over them...and now that the Testors laquer-based clear coats have proven to be so 'iffy'..I just can't rationalize using them.... Sincerely, Bruce
Well the possible issues with Dullcoat and Glosscoat and paint incompatibility has merit with all the formula changes and different products. Still the deterioration of the delrin leaves a question. However I have heard of future floor wax use before and maybe it is time to give it a try. Meanwhile restoration work creeps slowly onward. The lettering is from a diesel set and the heater car lettering is from the caboose set letters by letters. Since there is no C in the Great Northern and to keep the same font style and size I carefully snipped out a side of the O in Northern to make a C. Used some fine brass screen this time rather than diesel grill material in the vent openings and as you see two more MT caboose end rail/ladders awaiting cut down. Also getting ready to drill out for grabs and stirrups again. 2nd time around I'm going a little different and closer to the prototype. The prototype was last a SP&S unit purchased from GN a few years before the merger and was #5 on the GN and #1 on the SP&S. Car was probably used on the electric portion of GN in the Cascades. Only a few of the older heater cars up there got the Builder paint, most stayed in GN green. Since I'm in the modeling period that the car would still be in GN service is why the lettering and paint job in GN.
Well almost complete in this saga. Today finally got the brass sides back on, new ladders, grabs and steps, and reattached the feul fills. Still have to touch up some paint here and there and remount the trucks but done. Decided to give the Future floor wax a try. But after checking at 4 places I've yet to find it. Getting sorta like my past search for tungsten putty which I finally found. I have another couple of car projects in the works for a couple of cars to round out my SP&S, GN and NP passenger car sets but I've pretty much determined I won't use the brass sides again. Although they are nice all the car sides I want are now available in resin or plastic and for me that is less labor intensive and certainly less issues of prep than with brass. And those sides also are made to go with the American Limited core kits. Plus there are at least two SP&S passenger cars that are not in brass but are in the resin. The other thing is drilling out the brass for grabs and stirrups, etc. Spending the better part of a day with a pin vise and #80 drills is not my thing of joy. Also the cutting and bashing sides and rearranging windows is much easier with the other sides. So probably once I've finished sorting through my passenger stuff I am going to put my remaining brass sides up on Trainboard and get myself some other sides and more core kits.
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