Does anyone have any experience in getting dents out of Stainless Steel coach bodies? Or does anyone know of any practical way of removing (not filling) a large number of them? I don’t think that there is any easy way, but I figured this would be a good place to ask. Thanks
Good damn question. Replacing the sheet metal is out of the question.
Unless it is a Pullman-Standard ‘Osgood-Bradley’ car, I think you are out of luck. The P-S cars had stainless corrugated sheathing applied over “CorTen” rust-resistant steel, but the “CorTen” didn’t hold up 100%, so you’d be opening a can of worms. Most of these cars were bought by the New Haven and built in Massachussetts. B&M had some. Maybe MEC, too. Some diners, etc., were built at the P-S plant in Illinois, methinks. I hope someone knows of a solution.
Avalon Rail, Inc., www.avalonrail.com of Milwaukee, WI is currently refurbishing twelve ex-CPR Canadian Budd cars for VIA Rail Canada. They might have the answer.
You might also ask Amtrak’s Beech Grove shops. They do major repairs on a lot of ss cars, but I don’t know if they bother to remove many dents.
Hays
How big are the dents? Small dents on cars from hail storms can be removed with dry ice. I don’t know how thick the stainless steel is though. Try asking a paintless dent removal company. They have all sorts of tricks to remove dents. Good luck!
John
I worked at an auto dealership where we used “Dent Guys” to ‘push’ dents out of used cars. With small dents they could smooth a panel so it was perfect.
Here’s the problem. To ‘push’ a dent, you have to get inside the panel. Dont see how that is possible here.
Unless you can get to the INSIDE of the panel you can not fix it.
For a proper repair the dented area needs to be cut out and a new patch butt welded in and ground. This is how SFE at Topeka and Beech Grove repaired real problem areas. PS fluting comes off and could be replaced in kind; Budd LARGE fluting is also removable. Filling will not work and looks crappy. Stainless work hardens so even if you got behind a dent it’s unlikely it could be pounded out and look good.
These are 60+ years of small dents from rocks and things hitting the train. No major damage but dozens of dents on each coach. Thanks for the feedback.
Hi,
I work with metals and sympathize with your situation. These answers above are correct but you do have “workable” if not practical options. If you don’t want to take the cut-splice-weld method (which would be the best approach), there are other options.
As mentioned, if the fluting can be removed and accessed from the rear you can “painstakingly” remove the small dents with the proper tools. I’ve worked with steels before and my preferred “old school” method is carefully tapping out dents with body hammers (bumping, finishing, and pick) and fiberglass spoons. Stainless steel is a challenge as it becomes work hardened, but is still doable. The dents would still be visible but not as severe in appearance.
Expensive Solution that’s being used by car and truck shops today: Special body fillers can be used over steel that contain expoxies and metal bits that would adhere to the surface.
A. The ding/dent is pulled out to within "1/4 of the surface or closer.
B. The areas are grinded with 36-40 grit abrasive disc with an air powered or a griding disc mounted in an electric drill. Disc size for small dents “3. Large dents 6”. Clean the areas first with wax & grease remover.
C. The quality filler is applied, then featheredged with a block sander until the transition between the filler and steel is smooth. If the filler is applied smoothly enough, you can start block sanding with 80 grit and finish off with 260 grit. Using a primer spray gun, apply enamel based primer to fill in the surface imperfections. After it cures sand to a smooth countour starting with 320 girt and finish off with 600 grit sandpaper (3M Wet/Dry paper preferable)
D. With a primer spray gun, apply a quality urethane enamel b
I used to overhaul passenger cars and this was a very time consuming and expensive job to undertake.Stainless steel is a hard steel to work with.It can ruin a new drill bit in seconds when drilling new holes.If it is a small dent you can have limited success by taking a panel off,sanding a piece of wood to fit the contour of the steel,placing the wood under the dent,and hammering the dent from the other side with a plastic hammer.The dent will be somewhat straight but will probably have little dimples.If you have enough steel you can take a sander with very fine sand paper and smooth the dimples out enought to get a flat edge.That is about the best you can do with a hammer.
The other option is to section the dent out by cutting it out and replacing it with a new piece of steel.You would have to TIG weld the new piece in and grind the welds flush.This is a harder to do with stainless as the heat from welding will turn the stainless blue and will have to be sanded to get the color back to normal.Another way to remove dents(including larger ones) is using a P-grinder(that is a grinder with a very thin cutting wheel) cut a small groove going lengthwise the lenght of the dent in the middle and then cut another one going from top to bottom.This will relieve the pressure of the dent and you can bend it or pound it back to its original postion.Then you can weld the groove up and sand it flush.This works good if you need to save the original steel.The only problem with that method is the metal can warp easy due to the heat.So you need someone who really knows what they are doing or you can tack weld some backing plates on the back to prevent warping.
One final method for very small dents (smaller than a dime) is to fill the hole with weld and sand it flush.This much like the other methods takes skill and it is important you take your time and not get the steel too hot.Sanding or grinding the weld must be done only o
Thank you again for all of the suggestions, tips and ideas. Now I have a better idea of what some of the challenges are involved. rluke
Rich,
Can you post photos of the car? What type of car is it? Year built? Railroads served? Have you and your group decided which route you’re going to pursue?
Do your research before making a solid decision as to repair method(s). The plus side of stainless steel construction (even if dates back to the 1950s) is that if decently maintained, it proves to be quite durable. The Canadians (thumbs up to them) learned this decades ago.
BNSFWatcher is correct. A number of passenger cars constructed with Cor-Ten steel were not as durable as expected and signs of rust damage became more and more noticeable as time progressed. The New Haven 8600 series cars built by Pullman Standard are examples, though fortunately a few still survive today.
These coaches were built in Budds’ Philidelphia’s Red Lion Rd. plant in 1949. They saw service on the PRR and on MARC around the DC area. Based on the feedback, I will say the the dents will be a permanent addition to these coaches. I will get some photos, but I need to figure out how to post them here.
You can go to Photobucket.com and sign up for a free account. It’s very easy to use. Once you join, you’ll see the information on the page that will enable you to upload digital photos from your computer. After the photos are loaded, you’ll be able to click on the options below each photo (such as thumbnail), copy and paste that link on to your post and “voila” your photo(s) will be seen.