I've pulled this Missouri Pacific boxcar out of the storage cupboard to be weathered this past week after it had sat in there for a few years.
I don't even remember who the manufacturer is (or was), but it really is a nicely made car, featuring air hoses, coupler cut levers, and wire grab bar details.
Here's an example of the kind of wear and tear that I'm going for on this one. I won't be replacing the door, but I can paint one of them white.
And speaking of the doors, I have a picture (that I cannot find right now) of a similar car with the bottom door panel replaced, so I've done that on one door.
Being careful not to cut my fingers, I removed the horizontal ribs from that section of the door using a chisel blade, and then cut a piece .010 styrene to fit into that area on the door.
Skipping ahead a bit, here's one side of the boxcar after weathering. The original black has been flattened right down by spraying over it with Roof Brown. And of course that door has been painted white and now has some light surface rust.
The rust along the ribs is Raw Sienna with a light dab of Burnt Umber at the top of a few of those streaks. The Raw Sienna is yellowish orange, and shows nicely against the brown/black. Smokebox Graphics for the reflective stripes.
The graffiti is decals from pile of them that I had cut out and set aside some time ago - not sure of the manufacturer of them. There were no tack boards on the sides of the model, so I made a couple of them from a coffee stir stick (thanks Tim Horton's).
There's that styrene replacement panel on the bottom portion of the door...painted flat black, then rust added. The reporting mark patches are black decal film, and the lettering is from Microscale set number 90251 Stencil Gothic.
So that's about as far as I've gotten with this one to this point. I still have the boxcar ends, the wheels, and the roof to complete. Maybe I can get that done in the coming week.
Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.