Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Warren Newhauser wrote the following summary of the recent work done on the X-5000:

Chuck Trabert moves a cable out of the way before the test begins - Photo by Warren Newhauser

On the morning of Wed. Oct 7, Chuck Trabert, Chuck Pomazal and Warren Newhauser set out to begin the long awaited exterior restoration of the the Milw Rd Dynamometer car. We planned to spend the day doing a small but complete test of sandblasting and painting on the roof in order to work out any issues/problems before tackling the entire roof. Under the supervision of Coach Dept Curator Paul Cronin, we used his Clemco industrial sandblaster to blast a part of the roof using 40/80 and 10/20 grit crushed glass media in Yard 3. The sandblaster air was supplied by the Track Dept’s tow behind diesel compressor. Full safety gear was used including a positive pressure respirator safety helmet.

Warren went first to test the sandblasting before 10am - Photo courtesy of Warren Newhauser

The team gathered on the scaffold to examine the early sandblasting results - Photo by Jane Pomazal

Chuck Pomazal helped Chuck Trabert into the respirator - Photo by Jane Pomazal

Chuct Trabert began sandblasting before noon - Photo by Jane Pomazal

Another shot of Chuck T sandblasting - Photo by Jane Pomazal

Warren sandblasting again at half past noon - Photo by Chuck Trabert

The sandblaster worked very well on areas with paint, taking it down to the bare metal very quickly. Where the roof had rusted, it took longer - much longer - to clean up the rust. Each roof panel, about 30”x40”, took about 5 minutes to blast.

After blasting 5 panels and the A/C duct above them, our next step was to power wash the bare metal with water and a metal wash solution called Hold Tight (not the Justin Bieber song!!), recommended by AGSCO who supplies the blast media to IRM. Hold Tight cleans contaminants/debris from the freshly blasted metal and prevents flash rust for up to 5 days. This is necessary if blasting and painting can not be done in the same day. To do this we borrowed B&G Dept’s pressure washer/tank on a trailer arrangement and filled the tank with about 100 gals of softened water from the Diner per Dave Diamond’s recommendation. We pressured washed the blasted steel roof panels, but we could not get the pressure washer to draw the Hold Tight solution so it ended up flash rusting a bit. The pressure washing did, however, remove a LOT of debris from the freshly blasted metal though. We later found we didn’t have the required “chemical” tip for the wand that would draw the metal wash in.

To deal with the flash rust, we applied, by brush, a metal prep solution to dissolve the flash rust and provide paint adhesion.

Around 3pm Chuck T was applying metal prep - Photo by Warren Newhauser

Lastly, by late afternoon, we then sprayed the Master Series primer on the panels and duct with Paul’s HVLP paint gun. This paint requires 2 coats of primer and one topcoat, thus one more primer coat will be needed before topcoat.

It was near 5pm when Chuck Pomazal started applying primer - Photo by Warren Newhauser

Chuck P applying primer - Photo by Chuck Trabert

Another shot of Chuck P applying primer - Photo by Chuck Trabert

Quarter to 6pm the first section of the roof has one coat of primer - Photo by Chuck Trabert

Close-up of the primed section of Dynamometer roof - Photo by Warren Newhauser

Unexpected Issues/Problems/Lessons Learned:

1. During the day the blasted metal roof was so hot you couldn’t even put your hand on it even with gloves on. This caused us to wait until the sun went down a bit late afternoon before starting painting. Painting outside needs to be done early in the morning or later in the day if it’s exposed to the sun.
2. The 10/20 media pits the metal roof more than the 40/80 media does, but removes the rust faster.
3. In the past, we applied a roof sealants Permaflex and Vulkem (urethane rubber sealants which have lasted years) that are very difficult to remove with the sandblaster.
4. Rusted metal takes a lot more effort to blast clean than painted metal.
5. Pressure washing blasted metal removes a lot of debris in the metal. 

Now that we have done a test, we know what needs to be done to take on the rest of the roof. Based on the current sandblasting rates it will likely require 8-12 hours more sandblasting, 2-3 hours power washing, 4 hours to apply primer coat #1, wait 4-24 hours to dry, 4 hours to apply primer coat #2, wait 4-24 hours to dry, then topcoat (4 hours).

Thanks to Paul Cronin and Dave Diamond for all your help.

We have lots of opportunities for volunteers to learning the restoration processes. Please reply in a comment to the blog if you are interested in helping.