So - for outside storage, what brand and name of paint are you using for your steel cars and locomotives - and how long and well has it been holding up?

Thanks -

Sherwin Williams has two lines that promise to deliver good results. 'Sunfire' (catalyzed acrylic urethane) was developed largely to serve the auto painting market. 'Crossfire' is similar with some tweaking of the formulas, maybe a little more durable.

Imron I believe is a catalyzed polyester urethane, and if that can no longer be used, these two products may be restricted as well.

Bob Kutella

The 261 shop crew has painted a couple of cars during the last year or so with "Starfire" which resulted in a nice looking job. So far the paint seems to be wearing very well. Super Dome 53 and open door baggage car/concession car 2450 are two examples of what the paint looks like.


Don C.

It sounds like these are new applications without the benefit of years of service. Are we into a new paint era and long term results are not available?

Ellis paint also makes 2 part urethane. Last I checked it was available. I can still get imron at my local Long beach CA dealer. I don't know for how long though. I noticed that spar varnish is gone from the shelves.

You can trust the Sherwin Williams Sunfire paint to hold up very well. That was the paint of choice for the 261, which was painted with Sunfire in 1993 and still wears Sunfire to this day. All the orange and maroon cars it pulls except the Superdome and the new concession car, which as Don C. pointed out, were painted with a newer Sherwin Williams paint that is easier to apply, has a better shine, and is said to be graffiti resistant.
Mark D.

I guess it's time to ask what is less expensive, a basic shelter to get the equipment out of the sunlight, which damages much more than just paint, or to keep repainting the same equipment every few years.

Smokebox

Of course shelter is the cheaper. Some will say paint is cheap and we have 'free' labor. But cheap paint is just that - cheap. And free labor does not come from an unlimited well - every preservation site likely has more projects than hours to do them.

So if you consider prep work, whether you hire a contractor or assign a dollar value to the volunteer hours, shelter is by far less expensive - AND conserves more of the original fabric of the artifact.

Bob Kutella

Not a surprise about Imron. VOC limits for paints sold & applied in California are much lower than the EPA allows. Unfortunately, many states and some local jurisdictions(NYC) tend to model their environmental legislation on existing California law.

I'm fairly sure while NY States' VOC limits are lower than the Federal statutes, they are not as restrictive as Cali. Yet, the state of CT recently choose to embrace the Federal standards as their own.

In the near future, the entire subject of painting equipment could turn out to be a real minefield for some outfits :-(

Perhaps an area for ARM or TRAIN to get inolved with ?

DPK