I bought several brass engines many years ago in anticipation of one day having a layout. I opened the box's and to my chagrin the packing foam had broken down into a crumbly mess and was stuck to the models in several places, both on the factory painted units and the laquered brass.
Brushing the foam off left a stickey residue and/or no finish! Is there anything I can do short of total refinsh to recover from this, in my eyes, disaster.
TIA Dave Wheeler
disaster.< Unfortunately I have never heard of any way to fix this problem short of a repaint. I have bought models at quite a discount based on this condition. It's easy to redo the unpainted ones but it's sad to have to do it to a painted one.
Get them cleaned as soon as possible. Thefoam will eat into the brass over time. As said above, kiss the paint goodbye.
Howard
Sorry to hear about your experience with polyurethane deterioration (btw, were they in an especially hot place?).
If it all gets to be too much, and one of them is a non-PRR Atlantic, let me know what you want for it.
On the laquered models you might try goo gone and maybe you will save them or at least get them fairly clean. on the painted models you are probably out of luck. on the other hand if they only have a couple of small spots some real good painters can do excellent touch-up.
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