Saturday 20 October 2018

The Woodstock Train Show, and a Milwaukee Road boxcar weathered

I've spent time this week getting a number of items together to bring to the Woodstock Model Train Show at the fairgrounds in Woodstock,Ontario.  The show is tomorrow, October 21, and I've gotten myself a table there to try to sell a few things.


On the internet I found this photo, taken by Joe Pusey, of a boxcar that is somewhat similar to one I've had in my storage cupboard. The one difference that I notice is the greater number of waffles on the sides of the model. On the prototype, I particularly liked the dark rust areas on the doors.


Sooooo...using the photo above as an example, I weathered my ExactRail waffle sided high-cube boxcar over the course about 10 days or so.  It can take quite a while for the rust coloured paints that I use to dry, and I prefer to wait for that before before I move on to the next layer. This boxcar had a cameo appearance in this photo at the end of last week's blog.

This is actually the 2nd time that I've weathered this particular car.  I was never very happy with the way it turned out the first time, and got motivated to re-do it when I saw the photo that Joe had shared. I removed all of the previous weathering by use of Q-Tips dampened with 91% iso-propyl alcohol.  

I faded the too-bright yellow paint with ProtoPaint Flat Haze sprayed through my airbrush.  For the blackish areas on the doors and door tracks I mixed a bit of black into burnt umber oil paint and dabbed it on with a small brush.  The rust streaks are done with burnt sienna and burnt umber, thinned, and applied with a flat brush.  I patched over the original reporting marks with yellow trim film, but didn't change the number.  I also used some of the trim film on a few panels on one side of the car.

The yellow is still a little too bright I think, but I stopped applying the flat haze after about 6 layers because I didn't want the product to begin to turn the car white, or "frosty" looking.


I wanted to include the end of the waffle car here to show that I had patched the reporting mark there as well, so I snapped a quick picture.  But now I kind of wish I hadn't...oh well...I suppose the maintenance crew will be along shortly...and maybe the city street maintenance guys too.


2 comments:

  1. Your pavement work is excellent.

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  2. Thanks Matt. The pavement between the rails is .020 styrene cut and filed to press fit. Between the two tracks is .040 styrene, also cut and filed to fit. On the outside parts of the road it's made of drywall spackling. The cracks are drawn on with .005 artist black ink pen.

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