[SEL] My Economy (AGAIN)

[Joe Prindle]

I will offer yet another opinion on the "to paint or not to paint"
question. I generally don't like to paint unless I have something to hide
under the paint, like great gobs of weld. Since I usually do any cast
welding with the torch and old cast iron piston rings (Thanks for the tip,
Mr. Prucha!), I can even rust a weld to make it match.
Here is one that gets stale beer poured on it to keep the moss growing:
http://members.tznet.com/jprindle/alseconomy1.jpg
I have owned a few hundred engines. I used to really like to buy, sell and
trade. I learned that money spent on cleaning and painting was usually
wasted if I wanted to maximize the return on investment. Not to mention
the time involved. The engines that sold the fastest and got the best
price were nice clean engines, with little or no paint on them but not
rust pitted or broken up; engines that had no great amount of wear on them
and were fit to run just as they are. These engines make for fairly easy
restoration projects for both the real newbies and for the really old guys
who just didn't want to start out with a basket case.
Think about it. Most of us want an engine that we need to do something to,
we feel the need to improve upon it somehow in order to make it "ours".
How many of you can think of engines that either you or your friends
bought and then the amount of satisfaction you or they got out of making
it "just right"? My experience is that folks will pay almost as much for
one in good, clean unrestored shape as they will for a "trailer queen".
It takes a lot of work to get an engine prepped for paint, and it takes a
lot of money to buy the materials to do it right. If you are thinking of
selling the engine to upgrade your collection, the money spent on paint is
almost always a loss, not to mention the time.
I have trimmed my collection to about 4 dozen engines. Nothing super rare,
but no ZD fairbanks or LB's either, all of them are common or "slightly
less than common" hopper cooled, pushrod, farm engines. Most of them are
sparkplug since the smaller manufacturers up here tended to gravitate
towards spark plug ignition. Many of them, like Gilson, Sta-Rite and a few
others LATER offered engines with ignitors. Seems backwards from
conventional thinking.
Anyway, the ones I kept are almost all good unrestored engines that run Ok
and aren't welded up. Someday I would like to do the sort of restorations
that Dave & Curt do, but right now I don't have the time to do that and do
it right. I am one of the many folks who needs to work at improving their
painting skills, and I want to do it right when I do it. Nothing sucks
like removing a bad, bad paint job. Well, owning up to the fact that I put
that sucko paint job on it in the first place might be worse, but just try
to get me to admit it!
A year or so ago, Chuck Balyeat and I had a conversation going off-list
about "as found" engines. Chuck said he thought it would make a really
cool feature. What do you guys think? I have a Fuller with tree grown up
through the rails on the trucks, engine runs great and the first year I
took it to a show, I watered the box elder stump for a few weeks and got
it to sprout at the show. Cool, eh?
Joe


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Joe Prindle
Patternmaker, Founder & Machinist
See my 1889 Reynolds Corliss at:
www.tznet.com/jprindle
Our Club:
www.badgersteamandgas.com
See Yoo in Baraboo!


		
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