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Obviously, this is a question I ultimately have to answer for myself, and I think I know what my answer is...

I have never been organized for truly restoring signals, and a Ruleta restoration is not a beginner's task. I used to have a different Ruleta years ago, which I took apart. I ultimately despaired of the project, never got it back together, and sold it to someone who finally got the job done, and quite nicely!

My current Ruleta is very good, but needs a LOT of work to get it to showroom quality...lots of bolt holes (of various sizes) to drill out and re-tap, lots of paint to strip, and lens clips to be unfrozen, and then rewiring, if I were to go the whole distance. But it works nicely as-is and looks in decent enough off-the-street-shape.

Rather than doing a full restoration, I guess I'm really most keen on simply repainting it to a slate gray or dark green - to "un-Barnes" it from its yellow misery. I can imagine it's going to take a lot of paint to cover it nicely...the surface of the light is very uneven, from lots of thick paint layers, to bare metal, and everything in between. If I just do a quick and dirty job, it'll be a brush-on deal. I would be more careful than, say, a city maintenance guy, but it would still result in a signal much harder to restore in the future, if desired. But I figure if I'm going to strip it down fully, it'll be so much work that I might as well do the full restoration, which I just don't see happening... *sigh*

Yeah...gonna slap on mo'...

Have Gordon rewire it and slop coat it

Might I suggest a hybrid approach? Pull out the lenses and reflectors, clean them up with soap and water. Inspect and repair any bad wiring/sockets. Then Citristrip the sig without disassembling it. It should knock off the existing yellow slop coat easily. Then give it a quick sanding with some scotchbrite pads. Clean it all up with some soap and water and give her your own slop coat.

See, I'm not at all averse to the slopcoat, I'm just averse to that yellow that would be lurking underneath.

But at the end of the day, whatever is going to get it up and purdy the quickest is probably the best.

Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Food for thought. I don't like the idea of entombing the yellow layers either. I might get started with a hybrid approach tonight. :)

Could you take it somewhere and have it dipped to remove all of the paint? That would give you a fresh start and a nicer end result.

My "two" cents...

mcha9797 wrote:Could you take it somewhere and have it dipped to remove all of the paint? That would give you a fresh start and a nicer end result.

My "two" cents...

I have some lenses totally stuck in there. I can't get it all apart.

The more brains you have on a project the better I always say. I like Marks idea with the dunkin thing. I mean is there a soulution out there you can buy by bulk and simply fill up a lined box of some sort. Simply dip the whole signal in and pull it out and all the paint is gone, I mean gone?

vaughn wrote:The more brains you have on a project the better I always say. I like Marks idea with the dunkin thing. I mean is there a soulution out there you can buy by bulk and simply fill up a lined box of some sort. Simply dip the whole signal in and pull it out and all the paint is gone, I mean gone?

But what do you then do with the paint contaminated stripper chemicals?

I'm no tree-hugger, but I certainly wouldn't want to dump that stuff down the drain or into the wild...

SirMarbelot wrote:

mcha9797 wrote:Could you take it somewhere and have it dipped to remove all of the paint? That would give you a fresh start and a nicer end result.

My "two" cents...

I have some lenses totally stuck in there. I can't get it all apart.

Face the lenses up and put some lacquer thinner on there, it will eat away at the gasket.

Don't do what EdT would so and use a screw driver to pry!