I had picked up these three STEELCRAFT Zeppelin pull toys, produced in the 1930s, over the past few years. Two of them were really rusty and one had a very bad repaint from years ago. Surprisingly, they all had the vertical fins intact, all the wheels and the gondola was also in good shape as well. So when the time came to bring the life back into them, I decided not to do a straight up restoration but rather a Restor-Version and create some custom decals for these Zeppelins.
The Zeppelins were taken apart, parts sand blasted or wire brushed. The parts were then grey primer painted and then silver painted with some automotive grade silver lacquer paint. The clear coat paint was also lacquer as well. After the painting process, the custom decals were made using a couple graphics programs, a color laser printer and special decal paper.
The Graf Zeppelin (LZ-127) and the Hindenburg (LZ-129) would get some special German city Coat of Arms decals representing some of the cities that these Zeppelins may have flown over. Some other decals included the Zeppelin manufacturer location as well. The Los Angeles Zeppelin (LZ-126) was made in Germany and given to the US Navy as part of paying off some WWI war debt. The Los Angeles used the US designation of ZR-3 and has the US NAVY decal set applied to this STEELCRAFT Zeppelin.
Check out the photo set of these three STEELCRAFT Zeppelins to see the life brought back into them.
