This nicely weathered D&H boxcar was spotted on the spur at the local storage warehouse. In the background happened to be the same Ferromex boxcar that I had featured here back on May 18th. It's sitting out on the street trackage, waiting to be spotted to the same warehouse dock as the D&H car.
Anyway, it dawned on me that I had only shown one side of the Ferromex boxcar. So let's take care of that first. Here's the side not shown before, which has had the graffiti and/or rust painted over, new data markings, and a (blue) replacement uncoupling lever.
And now, here's the D&H boxcar as well. I looked around the interwebs for photos of these cars, but didn't really find any in this paint colour, so I just decided to just wing it on my own. The boxcar started out like this:
I began by spraying a couple of panels on the roof with ModelFlex Primer Grey to give the impression that those panels were replacements. Then I sprayed the boxcar sides with ProtoPaint's Flat Haze, which is a whitish colour, to fade down the red. I learned of the Flat Haze product from George Dutka over at http://whiteriverdivision.blogspot.com/ and this was my first time trying it out. I didn't want to go too heavy with it, because I figured it might turn the original red too pink. I put between 3 and 4 coats of the Flat Haze on the car, depending on where you're looking. For instance, the area to the right of the door received less fading than other panels did.
Once satisfied with the fading of the red, I set about adding the rust scrapes to the ribs, doors, and door tracks. I rusted the two panels on the roof, but after looking at it for a few days, I wasn't really satisfied with the roof's appearance. So I masked off the sides of the car, and sprayed the rest of the roof with the primer grey again and then rusted the rest of the roof with burnt sienna and burnt umber paints.
I weathered the wheels and trucks with Krylon Camo Brown. I always mask off the wheel treads before spraying them with the paint.
Hi Jim a nice looking D&H model. Your photos look really good too...thinking the new camera is really helping out a lot. What kind of camera did you get...George
ReplyDeleteHi George. It's a Nikon S9300 (16 megapixel), I bought used from a friend. It's definitely a step up from my little Canon pocket camera.
ReplyDeleteJim
Jim it is nice to have a good camera to work with...forgot to mention that the flat haze seems to need more coats over red. My D&H red hopper took three coats and could use one more...George
DeleteThe model looks great. I like the Flat Haze trick... need to remember that!
ReplyDeleteNot sure how "prototypical" you want to be, but because you masked the reporting numbers it looks like a re-stenciled boxcar. And, the D&H probably would not have existed to letter boxcars like this after the late 1980s. So, if you are modeling the modern times this car might need a patch paint over the D&H markings.