stripping paint on Walthers cars

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Hi folks,

I just bought some 91% rubbing alcohol as I’d like to start stripping the paint on numerous Walthers passenger cars, they were cheap, and have the following questions for those who’ve used rubbing alcohol to strip the paint.

First, how long does it take to go from painted to bare shell? I’m not on a time schedule so even a couple days does not sound to frightful.

Also, do I need to remove the windows in order to strip the paint? I’d prefer not too, but will it the alcohol will craze the clear plastic. Though having said that, it might make it easier to repaint if I didn’t have the windows in place.

Thank you in advance

Alvie

2

I would take them completly apart, so you’re only dealing with the parts that need stripping/painting,

2 sides, 2 ends, and the roof.

I havn’t stripped their passenger cars, but their freights took about a 30 min soak and a scrub with a toothbrush to be completly free of paint.

soaked about 5 min and a quick hit from the brush seems to break the surface “seal”, return to soak 20 min or so more, and paint just rolled off when scrubbed with brush.

3

Hello Alvie,

Good advice above and yes, you should remove the windows. Reinstalling them is not difficult, just takes a little patience although wearing latex gloves is helpful in avoiding those “pesky” fingerprints.

One additional step I take upon reinstalling the interior is adding window shades with long strips of styrene on each wall. After lining up the styrene strips, I make pencil marks on the spots where they will be visible from the outside then trim off between 1/8" to 1/4" to simulate the shades in different postions as in the photos below:

BTW: What type of Walthers cars do you have and what road name/paint scheme are you refinishing them to?

4

Antonio,

Thanks for your reply. The cars in question are a handful of Walthers streamlined cars, mainly a set of five P/S 10-6 sleepers specifically that I got cheap (about 20 each) that I’d like to repaint all over stainless steel for a model of the '49 Crescent I am working to recreate.

Alvie

5

Never stripped any Walthers passenger cars but their freight cars that I’ve stripped too under an hour, not sure exactly how long as I’ve never timed them. The only passenger cars I’ve stripped are Rivarossi and Athearn. They took under an hour.

6

That was an excellent deal. The Crescent was a stainless steel beauty of a train; especially behind E-units. I had read that at one time it had an ex-Wabash dome car (although I wonder if it was routinely removed before passing Washington due to the low tunnel clearances of the northeast corridor).

7

Well I went ahead and tried out stripping one of the cars. The silver paint came off real easy after a 30-minute alcohol soak and some scrubbing with a tooth-brush. Over time, I’ll strip more cars of components, roofs underframes etc.

My thanks again for the great advice everyone.

Alvie

8

So, Alvie, did you remove the windows as suggested by others?

Rich

9

I use Castrol Super Clean, the purple stuff. Works great.

-Paul

10

Yes I did, and that should I imagine make the model easier to repaint as there’ll be less masking.

Alvie