| |
Anyone who has LEGO from the early classic era (1957-1977) probably has
old windows and doors that are either faded, discolored, pitted, without
glass, or old faded Cellulose Acetate (the red windows are almost orange
in color). Well I came up with solution for my old damaged windows that
would otherwise never get used. I spray painted them! (AWK, GASP,
COUGH!!!!!!!) Yes you heard me, I spray painted them..... BLACK! I
have a few (mint) classic era windows in black, and I used them to match
the exact color of black modelling paint you can get at any toy store
that sells models. The results are quite good. I have a hard time
telling the painted black windows from the originals. And since black
classic windows are very very rare, these will really stand out.
I chose black because it is the easiest color to match exactly. I now
have about 30 windows that I have done this to (when you have as many as
I have, there are a large number that are damaged). Last fall Larry P.
stopped by for a visit, and he was appalled when he saw them, heh-heh.
But if I would have left these windows unpainted, they would have been
useless to me. They were that badly discolored/damaged.
Note: I don't paint Cellulose Acetate windows just because they are
CA. I paint them only when they meet the same damage criteria as the
ABS ones. I usually segregate CA windows into separate buildings so as
not to make their different color obvious.
I plan on building a single building with all of these windows. From
preliminary work, I think the results will be quite good. This is one
reason why I am pushing for re-release of the classic era windows, and
in new colors (black, yellow, blue, gray).
Also, on a similar note, of all the classic era windows/doors, the most
fragile was the classic door, whose handle often got broken off. When
that happens, voila! you have a 1x2x3 window (same size as the 1x2x3
small train window). I personally like these doors because without the
handle, these doors are an exact 1/3 version of the large classic 1x6x3
picture window. If the handle is broken off, or partly broken off, I
remove any excess plastic remaining from the handle. Sometimes I will
take a right hand classic door, a left hand classic door, and one of
these handle-less doors and make a 3 piece grouping of them. Granted
this is not originally the way LEGO was intended. But I like to make
the best of a bad situation!
Gary Istok
|
|
Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Classic era damaged windows/doors.
|
| (...) That sounds like a great idea...can you advise as to what particular paint you use? How do I determine the ABS from the CA? One of the problems that I have with my classic window is that the clear panes are often scratched. Have you ever (...) (25 years ago, 18-May-00, to lugnet.general, lugnet.town)
|
5 Messages in This Thread:
  
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
