Saturday 14 September 2019

How I Tried to Beat Up a Scrap Gondola

Here's an older (Roundhouse car I think) 50 foot gondola that I re-painted and lettered early this summer. As something of an experiment, I wanted to see if I could make the panels between ribs appear dented and banged up.

I started by cutting a couple of strips of .005 thickness styrene to fit in between the ribs. Then, I took the styrene strips outside and dropped them onto my concrete driveway (yes, the driveway) and rolled an old wallpaper seam roller over them a few times. Doing this embossed the styrene with little bumps from the irregularities of the concrete.

Back at the workbench, I cut the styrene strips to the required length, and glued the pieces right overtop of the original gondola panels. I then painted the gondola dark tuscan oxide, and decaled it as a Herzog (HZGX) car.

I got a bit more creative, and sprayed the gondola with chipping fluid. I then sprayed another coat of the dark tuscan, which I promptly chipped off with a damp brush, to give the appearance of the lettering being aged and worn away.


Certainly not the greatest looking model on the layout, but it was a fun experiment to try making the panels appear banged up. I think I could get a better result if I try this again at some point.

Speaking of scrap gondolas, the local scrap recycler on the layout has become quite the busy place for me to switch out. Things didn't quite turn out exactly as I would have liked at that industry, but it's pretty good. The main issue that I have with it is that the rail entrance that I would have liked to have there just didn't have enough real estate available, so a couple of compromises had to be made.

I really wanted the rail entrance to be at the front of the fence line so that:
a) the JSSX shortline would have handled the switching duties, and
b) the spur into the property would cut across the roadway at an angle, which I thought      would have been interesting visually. In my mind, this was to be something like a rail entrance to a scrap yard that I'd taken a (bad) photo of somewhere in Detroit a few years ago

But there just wasn't enough room for the entrance to do that. 

So, the rail entrance is at the back and the GT switches the cars in and out. Oh well, it's still fun anyway.
The spur into this scrap recycler in Detroit crosses over from the opposite side of the street that we were stopped on.  I would have like to have somewhat replicated the crossing on my layout.

My scrap recycler industry takes only about 10 minutes for me to switch out - an hour on the fast clock - depending on which spots the incoming cars are going to, and the order they're in on the train. I've collected quite a number of different types of gondolas that can be spotted in there. And, as I've shown some time ago, I've made removable loads for most of them so the cars can go in empty and easily be loaded to be switched out.
I've shown some of these loads for various gondolas before. The pipe, flat steel, and steel coils are loads that get sent in to a fabrication shop down the street from my recycler.  Also, 4th from the right is one of the removable false bottoms I've made for most of my fleet of gondolas.





10 comments:

  1. Hey Jim that gondola really turned out neat...another technique for all of us to try...George

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  2. One question Jim, just for clarification. What kind of glue did you use with the dented panels over the paint job? I'd be afraid of using CA, just in case it oozed out beyond them. Looks great whatever you did!

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  3. Thanks George, the bulges look a little better in person than they do in the pictures. This was something that I dreamed up on my own, but since then Luc has shown me a boxcar that he's had done somewhat similarly that I think looks really good. I'm sure I could do a better job if I tried it again.

    Thanks to you as well Dave...I just used the Plastruct liquid stuff, and that's probably why a panel or two has popped loose. You can see that a bit in the photos. I actually think that CA might have been a wiser choice in this instance.

    Jim

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    1. I'd give it a shot with the solvent on an unpainted model...maybe the previous paint layer interfered a bit since the plastic has to basically melt and weld itself together.

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    2. I think you're right. This model had it's original paint, so that would be a consideration for another time.

      Jim

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  4. Excellent work Jim. I've seen people using thick aluminion foil to create the same effect. In my eyes, beating up a thin material is the way to go with gondolas. I've never been a fan of heat distorsio since it always fail to capture how indented steel looks like. Also like the chipping paint effect. Nice trick once again!

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Mathieu. I've heard of using heavy foil for this before, and actually looked at those heavy disposable roasting pans, but thought I'd try the "5 thou" styrene. I share your opinion of the heat distortion...never seen one that looked right to me.

      JIm

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  5. Try rusting the outside of the gondola as well. The paint is broken up, but rust would have gotten in there good and really made it look bad.

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  6. Thanks for the suggestion. I just might try to do that.

    Jim

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