That's not a valid comparison. The CSL did store their cars inside most of the time when they weren't out on the street. When they were out, they were moving, so were constantly shaking the water off; when it was cold enough to rain they had heat, so were being dried out on a continual basis. The typical "display car" at a museum sits in the same spot until the roof starts to leak, then quickly becomes a terrarium inside.

Good paint can last a long time. I was a little irritated last weekend when I went out to IRM to see the Leviathan run, in that one of the Lackawanna coaches had some peeling paint and primer showing, until I realized I worked on painting that car shortly before I married... and I've been married almost thirty six years. The car with the peeling paint was done with custom color Pullman green Rustoleum that we used for "brush & roller" projects. The other coach running with the Leviathan is slightly darker in color, and I know that's the one we painted with Ditzler DQE automotive enamel; PPE's comparable product to Dupont Dulux. Both cars were lettered with One Shot Imitation Gold, and the lettering still looks fine. Both cars had shiny roofs, which must have been repainted more recently.

And a place called LA Gold Leaf has it for $37 a roll in 1/4".

Also I noticed both suppliers have imitation gold leaf for a lot less. Imitation gold leaf appears to be made of brass with zinc and copper with a warning that outdoor use will need varnishing to prevent tarnishing.

http://www.lagoldleaf.com/product_info. ... cts_id=160

Richard Wilkens

You might want to go talk to a Automotive / Hot Rod Pinstriper, these guys sometimes also do gold leaf work, they do it for a living, they can give you lots of practicable advice.

-Hudson

One museum I'm familiar with repainted one of their interurban cars and did a gorgeous job, but followed it up with some sort of faux gold leaf. Though not personally familiar with how it was done, I was told that it was something similar to gold leaf - i.e. not paint - but was not actually gold. The car has never spent any time outdoors but within a few years a great deal of the striping and lettering had badly turned color to a dull silvery, kind of pewter, color, which really ruins the effect of the great paint job. They may have neglected to varnish it, I don't know.

That brings to mind something I wanted to say about gold leaf. Many people here have said it needs a coat of varnish over it. Most of what I've read (admittedly, mostly sign painter's advice) says leaf should never be varnished. Gold is one of the most stable elements known to man... It won't tarnish, it won't corrode, it won't weather away. Heck, king Tut's sarcophagus still looks pretty good after a couple thousand years. Varnish, on the other hand, will dull and crack when exposed to the weather.

What leaf does need is to have the edges sealed, to keep the water from getting in behind it. that's the reason that traditional gold leaf lettering had a black outline; the black enamel outline was applied half over the leaf to seal the edges.

One of the comments I remember reading about gold leaf lettering is this: real gold is the only method that produces lettering that looks like it wants to jump off the surface to which it is applied.

If you are interested in the One-Shot "restorative clear" mentioned earlier, it's offical name is G4003 SIGN RESTORING CLEAR. Got this from a One-Shot MSDS listing we have where I work.

Thanks for all the tips we dont have a one shot stockist in Wyoming (surprise) so will order some gold or head to Fort Collins. I have dug out my Beugler pin striping wheel and think thats the answer we will try, should be easy following the waist moulding and we may have to tack a strip along the bottom for those two lines.
Will make a stencil up for the scrollwork....picture of that attached

http://car57.zenfolio.com/p331500692/h2 ... #h21d9d839

Will keep you informed of progress and results


Mike Pannell

A stencil is a really good way to go for an elaborate repeating pattern. I have seen photos in the Pullman plant of sign painters doing a lot of lining and scrollwork on a new wood sided passenger car. The only way I can interpret what I saw, is that lower skill level painters did the assigned work of applying the stencil for the varnish and leaf, and then skilled artists were using hand methods to 'connect the dots', bridge the gaps created by the V groove siding. And the same technique for bridging gaps in scrollwork due to the necessity of having bars in the stencil to hold it together.

So that touchup becomes almost unnoticeable if using real gold leaf, or a good quality opaque non metallic paint. The hobby paints using powdered bronze are notorious for trying to keep them mixed perfectly since the metal flake is much heavier than the vehicle. Once applied it is difficult to NOT SHOW brush marks, since that cheaper bronze flake paint is just as marketed, CHEAPER!

I have used the silver metallic from One Shot and it is better than the cheap hobby silver paints, but not immune from shading variations as it dries. Maybe they grind the metal flake finer to minimize the problem. After several years that paint becomes less lustrous, almost a uniform dull medium gray, but usually still recognizable as metallic.

Bob Kutella