Roof Details Kit

 Trying to follow up somewhat on the Roof Details kit from the last week's blog post...

Most of the vents in this photo look to be brand new, but there's a couple of other colours layered underneath that nice silver coloured paint.

My first step was to spray the detail parts with ModelFlex Rail Brown, and once dry, I sealed overtop of that with DullCote.  I should probably point out here that ModelFlex Paints are acrylic (which is water soluble), and the DullCote is a lacquer (not water soluble).

The DullCote was followed up by a layer of Chipping Fluid, which is a clear acrylic.  When that dried, I sprayed overtop of that with ModelFlex Rust, followed with another layer of Chipping Fluid.  Then, I sprayed a top coat of Vallejo Dull Aluminum (I know that aluminum wouldn't rust, but I don't have a steel coloured paint, so please grant me a little modeler's license here).

So that's six layers of paint altogether, which I let dry until the next day.

The next step was to somewhat vigorously rub the parts with a water dampened brush.  The water reacts with the acrylic chipping fluid that lies underneath the acrylics.  Some of the acrylic aluminum and rust colours scrubs away, leaving 2 colours of rust to show through.

The finished effect of the 2 colours of rust coming through the silver metal can be seen in this photo.

A little closer view of the rusty vents.

In this view, GTW 6210 is dropping a couple of cars into the MidWest Plastics plant. Meanwhile up on the building's roof, the plant's exhaust vents are largely ignored as they suffer the longterm rusting effects of weather.

Not that I mind very much, but I always find it a bit surprising to come across one of my own photos while doing an internet search for reference photos for a project.  That's just what happened last Sunday evening though.

I had posted this photo to the blog back in 2017, and happened across it while doing a Bing search last Sunday.

And lastl but not least, Brian Smith sent this photo from Ingersoll, Ontario this week, of nature's pretty nasty weathering work on a USLX covered hopper.  I think that ExactRail made or perhaps still makes a model of this type (Magor) of covered hopper, although I'm not as sure that they made it with the USLX (General Electric Rail Services) reporting marks.

I cropped some of the sky out of Brian's photo. It wouldn't be too much work to change the lettering on the freight car.  The rust could be a good challenge to try to replicate, but I don't think I would even try to pull off that animal graffiti. The spare rail in the foreground is a real nice touch to Brian's photo.