Well, I have three steam engines... 2 IHC and one Riva... that needed to have the lettering removed from the tenders. I tried a couple of things, and figured ouf that I was going to have to give them a soaking in rubbing alcohol. "Oh well," I thought, "I will have to repaint them, I guess."
Got them out today... While I may still have to repaint the IHC tenders, I noticed something with the Riva one. The lettering had come off, all right, and the paint had started to. As I rubbed off the areas that the lettering was on, I noticed a grimy black, dusty filth coming off onto the cloth. At first I thought "Dang, the paint is coming off."
However, something in the back of my mind... grimy filth, steam tender, black... grimy filth, steam tender, black...
Then it hit me... what I was holding was a pretty good looking, weathered, steam tender!
I guess I will hit it with some dullcoat to seal it on, and the letter it. I had to clean the areas to be lettered (with dry transfers), so I will have to put a little grimy black on them after (or make up a story as to why those parts are clean ;-) ), but I don't think I could have done a better job of weathering that tender!!!
Every once in a while, I "idiot" my way into something good. ;-)
Mike