Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

This should clean up amazingly well Mike, looking forward to your "nuclear" restoration. She's a "riveted" boiler plant as well. nice catch 😊

Mike, it's a thing of beauty despite a little dirt. You probably know this already, but a couple of options for chimney replacement... 1) undersink drain plumbing available from most hardware stores
2) extension tube from old Electrolux type vacuum

Cool project sir!

Roger

Unfortunately, no amount of careful cleaning will bring out the original finish on this engine. The engine base has been repainted the wrong color blue. The generator is untouched, but very rusty. The firebox and smokebox have been painted flat black and will have to be redone. The nickel plating on this engine has also suffered pretty bad over the years. I will do my best to make it presentable again.

Yep .... that one is going to need a bit more "help" than I originally thought!

But you're the right man to get her done up well and proper, I've no doubt!!!

Congratulations on your latest acquisition, Mike! I am jealous... 

It's a perfect project: dilapidated enough to make it a challenge, but not so much to be discouraging.

Good luck, and I will be watching with interest.

Paula

PS - Love that beautiful Tabby!

Here it is after a lot of cleaning, some polishing, some paint stripping, a little repainting, some repairs and a replacement smoke stack.
I may repaint the engine base and the generator in the future, if I can get the blue color matched correctly.

Wow, what a difference! Looks great!

Paula

Thanks! The patina is really growing on me.
This engine has an interesting back story. I was told it was at the top of a large tiered display at a large department store in Cleveland, Ohio, which was probably The May Co. It was never sold and got put into storage. A long time security guard who remembered the display then finds the engine in storage and takes it home. Fifteen or so years ago, an estate auction was held for the contents of the security guard’s home and the engine was found in the attic. A fiend of mine’s father buys the engine at the auction and cleans it up some and does some minor restoration work to get it running. Ten years ago I laid eyes on it and told him to let me know when he decides to part with it, and here we are today.