The Southern Pacific type locomotive bell on the steam ferry EUREKA has been in storage and now proposed to be put back on deck in an outdoor location on the boat.

On Railroads the outside of bells are rarely painted, often polished. Any thoughts on what kind of preservative should be used on the bell?

Has anyone considered a plastic or other materiel replica bell on their locomotives?

ted_miles@nps.gov

A generous coating of railfan foam would be very appropriate.

> Has anyone considered a plastic or other
> materiel replica bell on their locomotives?

The traditional coating for "bright work" to reduce the amount of polishing on Navy ships is a very thin coat of varnish. Once applied, it refered to as "Quartermaster." Old Navy tradition is to remove the Quatermaster on the uniform web belt's brass buckle so that it has to be polished daily. Though I must admit that on modern ships, the amount of brass is greatly dimished. On the older ships there was a cycle of painting the bright work while in home port, usually haze gray or deck gray. This avoided having one's liberty delayed for verdigris on the bright work. But when on a long deployment, the paint often gets removed and more and more of the bright work gets it's traditional morning polishing.

Ed


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