This is to anybody who has a clue about painting a wooden caboose. The Sumpter Valley's caboose #5 is a nice little car, but she is due for a new coat of paint. The problem is that I don't really have a lot of info on how to paint a caboose. I'm guessing that she just needs to be sanded down and a at least two layers of a high quality oil based house paint applied, but maybe I'm wrong. I also want to repaint her handrails and such, so I'm guessing that I use the same procedure and put on a couple coats of laquer black house paint. Now comes prototypical accuracy. I have only seen one photo of a SV caboose right after it was built, and it appears to have a glossy red paint job. Wasn't it standard practice on any railroad for just about any car to always get a coat of glossy paint when it rolled out of the shops or was repaired? If any body has any info, comments, or questions I'd love to hear them.

Thanks, Taylor



thrush@smt-net.com

Taylor,
Paint the caboose the way you would paint any wood. Prep work is 90% of a good paint job. Scrape loose paint, sand out rough areas and feather out areas where paint is scraped or popped loose down to bare wood and prime where needed before painting color desired. Most cabeeses are red but not all, you'll need to research that. I still prefer oil base paint over latex. On the metal handrails, sand and paint with rustleoum paint. Before doing any work,take photos, and trace markings so you will have to make stencils and get measurements of location of markings so you will know placement when it is time to re-letter.

> This is to anybody who has a clue about
> painting a wooden caboose. The Sumpter
> Valley's caboose #5 is a nice little car,
> but she is due for a new coat of paint. The
> problem is that I don't really have a lot of
> info on how to paint a caboose. I'm guessing
> that she just needs to be sanded down and a
> at least two layers of a high quality oil
> based house paint applied, but maybe I'm
> wrong. I also want to repaint her handrails
> and such, so I'm guessing that I use the
> same procedure and put on a couple coats of
> laquer black house paint. Now comes
> prototypical accuracy. I have only seen one
> photo of a SV caboose right after it was
> built, and it appears to have a glossy red
> paint job. Wasn't it standard practice on
> any railroad for just about any car to
> always get a coat of glossy paint when it
> rolled out of the shops or was repaired? If
> any body has any info, comments, or
> questions I'd love to hear them.

> Thanks, Taylor


phess@webkorner.com

Paul,

I figured I was supposed to do most of what you said about prep, glad I was right. This caboose is red with black trim, and as far as we know she has always been red. When it comes to her lettering, I was planning to just paint around her current lettering and then touch it up. Her lettering is very simple, and consists of only her number, railroad, weight, and builders date. This process seems easier to me, but I may be making a mistake, does my idea sound like it would be all right?

Thanks Again, Taylor

thrush@smt-net.com

Start with lots of prep. Scrape, sand, prime with oil bases primer and sand again. There are some good knifing putties which can help you avoid the many scraped and re-painted look that so many of the restored cars have. Take the time to repair and or replace any damaged woodwork. What ever you do, donÂ’t use a water blaster. They are effective at removing paint, but also remove wood and leave a wood grained texture, while injecting water into your siding at the same time.

I strongly suggest oil based paints. Oil can be sanded out, while latex material forms a skin, which tears off in sheets if you try to sand it. Buy the best paint you can find. ItÂ’s worth the cost. Rustoilum works as well as anything for the metal work.

I would probably trace the old lettering, sand it smooth, and have someone repaint it. I suspect that any lettering left on a Sumpter Valley caboose was put there by a restoration crew in the last 20 years. DonÂ’t automatically believe that it is correct with out other documentation.

Take the time to have someone research the cars history and paint. Sand “windows” into the paint to see what layers are there. Photograph everything. Write it all down. You may be surprised at what you find.

Randy Hees


Society for the Preservation of Carter RR Resouces
hees@ix.netcom.com

Don't try to save time by painting around existing lettering. Initially, and from a distance, it might look OK. By it won't weather well. The marking paint will begin to go bad, and it will be obvious what was done. Also, even though we don't think of paint as having appreciable thickness, it does matter how you layer it. The old letters will be lower than the new paint around it, and that will be obvious when you get close to the car, or when the sun glints off it. I've seen cars painted that way, and they look bad.

Drawing on my experience working with my dad (biology teacher/professional house painter) I will agree with everything Paul said--especially the part about priming bare wood. That's absolutely essential, as is getting all loose paint off the car.

My museum has a 1909 NP wood caboose (built at Brainerd shops) that needs work, and I can't wait to get my hands on that car. Good luck with yours. I wish I was working on ours.

TSS

> Paul,

> I figured I was supposed to do most of what
> you said about prep, glad I was right. This
> caboose is red with black trim, and as far
> as we know she has always been red. When it
> comes to her lettering, I was planning to
> just paint around her current lettering and
> then touch it up. Her lettering is very
> simple, and consists of only her number,
> railroad, weight, and builders date. This
> process seems easier to me, but I may be
> making a mistake, does my idea sound like it
> would be all right?

> Thanks Again, Taylor


tsschult@usd.edu

Todd,

I guess I'll have to figure out how to make some good stencils, shouldn't be all that hard. We just put the sister of this caboose on the rails as well, she needs a lot of restoration, but will be cool when she's done. This is really just going to be a basic cosmetic restoration that will probably only last a couple years. She's going to be pulled out of service in the near future and fully rebuilt. We have an 1895, Great Northern wooden caboose on site that is used as a dormitory she's pretty cool as well. Do you happen to have a photo of you're NP caboose on the web somewhere? Just so you guys can get a basic look at the caboose #5,on this small photo page-

http://members-http-3.rwc1.sfba.home.ne ... first_run/

And if you want to see some photos of the restoration of our 1882 Pullman, look here-

http://members-http-3.rwc1.sfba.home.net/svry/emma/

Thanks Again, Taylor

thrush@smt-net.com

Speaking of painting on wood cars........

On heavily weathered wood, is linseed oil still considered a usable undercoat for oil base finishes?

I recently visted a museum (of which the railroad collection is a very small part) where there are cars with total paint erosion (facing the sun). On some cars repaired wood can be pointed out because of weathering differences from what appears to be linseed oil. There is a Great Norhern caboose with NO paint left (except for a few letters) but the siding is 90 percent intact. It appears to have a linseed oil undercoat (the siding has an oily residue. A staff member told me that they had 300 gallons of linseed oil.

Ideas?



mikefrommontana@juno.com

Pounce patterns work well and are easy to make.

Take some draftsman's tracing paper and tape it onto the car over the lettering. Pencil the outlines onto the tracing paper.

Lay the tracing paper over some heavier paper and pin them together over some soft plywood or homasote. Using an icepick, or a nail, something pointy, prick out a series of holes about 1/4" apart through both sheets along the outlines.

When it is time to letter, tape this pattern onto the car in correct alignment and use an old sock filled with talcum powder or carpenters chalk to tap through the holes and leave a series of dots on the car side. Remove the pattern, and play connect the dots with a pencil.

Just paint inside the lines and the job is done.

Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

> Pounce patterns work well and are easy to
> make.

> Take some draftsman's tracing paper and tape
> it onto the car over the lettering. Pencil
> the outlines onto the tracing paper.

> Lay the tracing paper over some heavier
> paper and pin them together over some soft
> plywood or homasote. Using an icepick, or a
> nail, something pointy, prick out a series
> of holes about 1/4" apart through both
> sheets along the outlines.

To make this a little easier one can but a pounce wheel in an art supply store. They run about $8.00 in the US and $15 in Canada. Our sign painter just did a terriffic job of using a pounce wheel to put the CV herald back on our steam crane plus reletter our CPR caboose.


paul.bown@sympatico.ca

> Speaking of painting on wood cars........

> On heavily weathered wood, is linseed oil
> still considered a usable undercoat for oil
> base finishes?

We have tried a number of items on our wood equipment of the last 20 years but the sun really beats the daylights out of it. We have started to repaint every two to three years on the sunny side. We get 5 to 6 on the opposite side. The car side are sanded and then given two coats of opil based paints. If the second coat is added within a week of the first no additional sanding is required. If over a week we give a light sand and wipe to aid adherence between coats. We have tried a number of varnishes to try and protect the paint but none worked and several yellowed. We did have sone success with an exppensive marine varnish ($120 cdn a gal)and while it did not yellow the tuscan paint still faded. We have used linseed oil from time to time on untreated wood but recently have gone to normal preservatives plus a primer coat.....BRSPaul

paul.bown@sympatico.ca

Dave,

I had never before heard of a pounce pattern, but the idea seems simple and effective. I'm fairly good with a pintbrush, so handlettering once I had a basic shape shouldn't be to hard. We have several other pieces of equipmen tthat would benefit from some pounce lettering as well. Thanks for a cool idea, if we end up relettering the whole car thats what we'll probably use.

Thanks Again, Taylor

thrush@smt-net.com

> I had never before heard of a pounce
> pattern,

Taylor,

Pounce patterns were once a very common way of painting the same lettering or deisgn, again and again. It was commonly used by railroads and truck painters.

Once computers and vinyl letter became available it seems to have disappeared.

I know that both Union Pacific and Santa Fe used pounce patterns for their lettering. I have seen some UP paterns from the streamliner era. When some of these were being used in the 1970s to paint some private cars, the painter from a truck painting firm knew all about pounce patterns.

Santa Fe prepared full size drawings of the "stencils" for lettering its cars. It would make sense to make these full size prints into pounce patterns. I have also seen adhesive backed leter-by-leter stencils to letter "Santa Fe" on passenger cars.

If anyone is interested many of the Santa Fe lettering drawings are now in the collection of the Calif. State RR Museum.

It also seems that pounce patterns have been used to mark cloth for cutting material for clothing,

Brian Norden

bnorden@gateway.net