Covered Hopper and a Waffle Box

The receiving office here at the JSSX was pretty happy this week, as we've received a replacement hatch cover for that McKean brand Polysar plastic pellets/granules covered hopper that was featured here a couple of weeks ago.  The shipper, and all around good guy, was Kevin Smith who volunteered to send along the replacement part - plus another spare!

Here's the covered hopper with the 3rd from the right hatch cover missing, and the new replacement about ready to be installed

Hatch cover is in place, but looking pretty new compared to the rest of them

Just a little filing of a bit of flash on the new part before gluing into place, and then weathered with a quick dab of Tamiya's Panel Line Black to match the other covers.

I had weathered this Exactrail waffle boxcar a long time ago, and thought at the time that I'd paint one of the doors with primer to try to suggest the door was a replacement.

Truth is, I never really liked the way the door looked, but left it like that.  Until this week.

I masked around the red door with tape, and then sprayed the door black. I then sprayed clear gloss over that, and cut and scraped together new decals for the door from my decal box.  With that done, I loaded the airbrush with thinned Roof Brown and sprayed multiple light layers until I got the door to almost match (on purpose) the one beside it.

With the boxcar back in the same location you can see that the colour difference between doors now is slight, but noticeable.  I like the way it's looking now much better than before.

Have a great week everybody.  And thanks very much Kevin !