Riveted Jensen 25 Restoration

tmuir · Riveted Jensen 25 Restoration

I just received my 25 today.
The seller removed it from the base to save money on the postage but after an email from me he has said he would send it to me so I will get the base soon.

Here are a few teaser photos.

Now the plating on the boiler doesn't look too bad and I'm hoping a careful polish will sort it out.
Can anyone recommend the best polish for this?

Next question, the plating on the cylinder is nearly completely gone.
Would replating this lower the value of the engine?

I've had a close look at the base and I think I can see the normal blue under the red paint.
Any chance someone who has some Jensen blue paint lying around could paint a bit of plastic or small bit of metal and post it to me so I can try and find a close match here in Australia?

The steam pipe appears to be painted gold. Is this original or would it of been nickel plated?

The engine turns over but only just as it is really gummed up and there is some rust on the crank shaft but I'm pretty confident a strip down, clean and maybe a rub of some fine wet & dry on the crankshaft will sort that all out.

I will put up some more photos soon.

Les

Have you tried to remove the red paint so you leave the original blue showing??

tmuir

Atticman

Thats great to have sorted the base out Tony, could well have gone into a wood burner or something

rangerssteamtoys

I'll let Rog correct me if I'm wrong so here goes.

The steam line was originally nickel plated
The cast iron base was a blue called "Robins egg blue"

I dont think nickel plating some stuff will hurt the value.

IndianaRog

Tony,

I agree with Ranger's inputs except for the color on the base...International Blue (a tractor paint), was used in later years. The 4 bolt 25 as best I understand it, was painted with the infamous "Robins egg blue" by Mrs. Jensen at her kitchen table. (or so the story goes) If you look on my website:

http://www.freewebs.com/indianarog/jensensteamengines.htm#96209239

You can get an idea of the color I used...this was mixed up from several colors of model railroad paint to get what you see. You can find many variations of the Jensen robins egg blue out there, probably depending on when someone last stirred the barrel!

Good thing you didn't let seller scrap the wood!!! I will get you some pictures and measurements of the stack base when I get my camera back.

cheers,
Rog

tmuir

I attacked the underside of the base with acetone and managed to get enough red off to see the original colour.
I doubt I could strip it all like this due the cast iron's texture. The low points hold the red and by the time I got that out the blue would e gone on the high points.

Will put up a few more photos shortly.

IndianaRog

Tony, if you can get down to the original color and get a piece about 1 inch x 1 inch...hardware and paint stores can match the paint using some sort of computer matching system that scans the old paint. Just needs to be about that size.

My ACE Hardware here mixes it up a quart at a time for custom tinting and that would be 100 x what you need, but they only charge about $10 and it's a very good quality, brush on enamel. I used this approach on my Jensen 51 replica cast iron base repaint and was very happy with the finished product.

Otherwise you can blend a few railroad model paints to get the right color...you are only covering a very small area, so you can afford to mix up several batches til you get one you are happy with.

Rog

tmuir

Here is the original paint showing through the red.
I need to strip more red of but acetone is nasty stuff and I really need to do this outside not in my workshop so will strip some more off on the weekend when I can do it outside.

It looks like a darker blue than on Rog's engine.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see the plating is in better condition than I thought.
It looks like the cylinder was lacquered at some point and this has yellowed.
I undid the screws on the end of the cylinder and this cracked the lacquer and revealed a nice shiny surface underneath.

I didn't take any photos of the boiler, will do that tomorrow night but I can see the firebox has been hacked, it looks like so it could be used with a meths burner but I can see no evidence of this happening so they may of prepared the firebox and then never got round to making the burner.
On a plus the metal has just been slitted and folded down so I can carfeull unfold it and may be able to make the damage almost disappear.

johnreid

That one just keeps looking more and more like you really got the buy of the century. That one is going to turn out so nice. I do believe that especially the older Jensens were built to last, once you get it cleaned up and assembles complete with heater it will be a good runner too.

Mark-One

The paint looks pretty light in the photo, but it would, depending whether or not your flash fired.

Looking good. I almost fainted when I read about the wood base. Very glad that got sorted out.

Dampfzauberer

For the boiler i have the ideal polish for you!

Make a small bath of light vinegar concentration.
Then put the boiler fully under water.

The vinegar must not be too strong.

Let it stay about 3-4 minutes and then test the boiler surface by whiping over with your fingers.
It has to be very easy removable...

With this little trick you avoid scratching the boiler in any way.
Also, the vinegar dissolves only the small rought spots on the boiler and not the intact nickelplating.

rangerssteamtoys

If you want the cast iron base completly clean, you have to sandblast it

I would do it for you, but shipping would probably be a killer

Same goes for the firebox

tmuir

Sand blasting won't be necessary.
As long as I can get enough of the old paint off to provide a good key for the new paint it will be ok.

scalex

you can also get things soda blasted now it is supposed to only take off a very thin layer of paint at a time it might be worth looking into for future resto jobs

tmuir

The whistle is stuck in the boiler.
On Renowns the bush is just soldered on the outside of the boiler so its easy to remove the bush and then sort out the stuck whistle.

But what is the best approach on Jensens to removing stuck whistles?

IndianaRog

Tony, I have never encountered a whistle stuck in a Jensen boiler, so I can't be much help.

Whistle is made of brass, bushing and boiler are of brass...if you put too much torque on them something could break or you could create a leak where you may not have one now. The Jensen riveted boilers were riveted because they were soft soldered (non-riveted types were all silver soldered).

I would be inclined to try the usual breakfree type stuck nut solutions and if they don't work...leave the whistle as is, in place. You can fill and drain thru the SV hole, so it is not critical that whistle be removeable...fair chance forcing it would bugger up the whistle, bushing, boiler or all three

Rog

tmuir

rangerssteamtoys

I would try vinegar. If that doesnt work, penetrating oil.

IndianaRog

Tony, if the boiler is caked up with calcium inside...use caution emptying it out after the first few steamings. I have ruined one Jensen whistle by tipping boiler upside down to drain thru the SV hole leaving whistle in place...result was that some of the crud inside the boiler ended up lodging inside the whistle plugging it. I never could get the crap out of the whistle after that.

Maybe better to use the large syringe/hose-tube approach to get water out, crud and all! You are right that maybe a few steamings will soften things up from the inside out. Vinegar would certainly help, but try to keep it off the nickeled surfaces which it can etch.

Rog

Griffin

As regards to making a new chimney base. Not to sure if the dimentions would be right, but would a chimney base from a junk #35, or #5 say, be modified to fit?

I know the very early Jensen fireboxes are lower, so if one was to remove the tabs from the bottom of the doner base, then make two cuts in each corner of the base, after that fold the metal 90 degree's to make two new tabs. This would then lower the base to suit.

All one would have to do then would be to plug the hole where the power cord came through.

Just a thought to save fabricating one from scratch.

IndianaRog

Griffin,

I did exactly as you describe to make the slightly lower chimney stand for the 4 bolt 25...bit of cutting on a 35 stand and a bit of body putty to fill in the hole...voila, perfect fit.

I will send Tony photos and measurements shortly, wife has the camera.

Rog

tmuir

rangerssteamtoys

Look at rogs site, look at his Big cylinder 25. Just dowels painted black. You probably want measurements though.

http://www.indianarog.com/jensensteamengines.htm

27ace27

update please!

tmuir

Mamodman123

If you want to remove paint mix up a load of petrol and brake fluid, that killed the paint on a mamod I'm restoring at the moment

Better than Nitromors too!

tmuir

Got the base today.
As far as I can see its the original base as the routing is the same as other early Jensens and I can see where the chimney was once mounted too but can find no evidence of a Decal and the varnishing is almost completely gone.

I'm open to suggestions as to the best way to clean and protect the base.

Mark-One

The early ones had a sort of tape wrapping around the handles, I think, rather than the wooden dowels.

Gil, Rog, and Cedge would know more about this I'm sure.

IndianaRog

I would personally strip it with chemical stripper, sand the rough spots with fine sandpaper, re-stain it and apply several coats of semi-gloss polyurethane.

You will be redoing the engine and firebox anyhow, no sense trying to preserve one bit when others will get the full treatment, but that's just my way of thinking (I restore everything!).

Rog

tmuir

I was thinking the same Rog but I'm unsure how I will get 70 years of dirt out of the routed edge without damaging the crispness of the routing.

Except on one edge I don't think there is even any varnish left to polish up.

Would this base had a decal on it?

Burnmafingers

johnreid

Do they not have Murphys Oil Soap in Australia?

Give it a good cleaning and then decide, I would use a toothbrush in the routed areas to scrub it up a little better.

tmuir

Not heard of it John.
What exactly is it as we may have a similar product here?

rangerssteamtoys

I would sand it down and restain it, then a few coats of minwax semigloss.

As for the routered edge, I just re router them. That type of edge might be hard to replicate though.