Freight car projects

[sarge]

Butch, the first three photos above are of the same car, just "before" and "after".





All I did was knock the other guy's weathering off a bit with wire wool, some mechanical work changing over from P48 to O Scale, a couple touch ups and repainted his replacement coaming piece to represent a fresh repair.

I like wire wool for both weathering and for relettering cars, both plastic and brass. The old excuse about not trying any weathering because of the fear of ruining the paint job really melts away once you get used to using fine wire-wool to both remove "over-weathering" and to emphasise the high spots like ribs and ladders (just as nature does) by working with it in the same direction as rain does. You can not only recover a paint job that the weathering was poorly done on but make that poor job suddenly an outstanding one just by rubbing things down gently with #0 or#00 wire wool. If it doesn't work, well you were going to strip it anyway...

One thing to be wary of is keeping the swarf from electrics and loco mechanics. It can cause all sorts of mischief.

[up148]

I missed that Brian, but the change is day and night. You saved a car and made it really, really nice looking. I plan on doing some more weathering and being able to remove mistakes or overweathering will be immensely helpful.

Yeah, steel wool can be a nightmare for motors and electronics. I still remember the spark and snap of electricity and smell when lead tinsel used to fall across the rails under the Christmas tree.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

...wire wool for both weathering and for relettering cars, both plastic and brass.

Neat trick that I doubt many have considered -- another Top Tip!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Another rebuild project.....I opted for the red color scheme,

[sarge]

Every now and then someone takes what many consider to be beneath consideration and makes something really very nice.

A friend of mine posted this car to me, the challenge he took on for himself was to see what he could make from the lowly AHM flatcar. He is very skilled, had a lot of fun, and it shows in the result:





I put some Intermountain trucks on it, otherwise his work. I'm honoured he sent it to me.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Something a little different. Scratchbuilt board by board and also with a prototype....

[bob turner]

Very nice. You should re-do your tank car thread.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Very nice.

Thanks. Was nice that I could track down that funky air hose casting.....kind of a unique to that RR item.

You should re-do your tank car thread.

I think we're good here with Freight car projects,

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Rebuilt Thomas.....these are full of good play value.

[sarge]

The Thomas tank car was the gold standard for 8000-gallon cars probably until the mid-80s. I built several single-dome cars from Thomas back in my youth, as will as lots of kitbashed Kusan cars in plastic. The Max/USH car was actually a 10,000gallon car even though labelled at 8k. The mix looked good!

[sarge]

Talking of tanks and moving up a number of decades, here's another over-weathered car dialled back to something more easy on the eyes in a blended fleet. Factory painted Pecos River Brass Trinity tank car bought off the secondary market.

Whoever did it really didn't have an eye on how weather actually works on the real thing, so what would have been a good toning down really was heavy-handed under layout lighting conditions. This is how it looked when it got to me, the photo used by permission of the seller:



After attacking the open flanks with wire-wool to knock the majority off as air and rain would do, I mixed some thinned body colour, then dust colour, and finally a flattening coat, all to de-escalate the remaining weathering and blend the whole.





You can "deweather" stuff after having suffered from the heavy hands of others. Wire-wool can be brutal especially with an unknown paint job, but you'd be stripping it anyway so why worry?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

The Thomas tank car was the gold standard for 8000-gallon cars probably until the mid-80s. I built several single-dome cars from Thomas back in my youth, as will as lots of kitbashed Kusan cars in plastic. The Max/USH car was actually a 10,000gallon car even though labelled at 8k. The mix looked good!

And if you have a hankering for a 6 dome car, it's viable option vs. having a sit down with the loan officer, Many seem missing the hatches and even the upper section of the dome itself. Casting parts is fun!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Wire-wool can be brutal ......

What grade(s) are you using? 000 or 0000 or something coarser?

[Pacific Limited]

Rebuilt Thomas.....these are full of good play value.

Hey this is nice! I just finished this one.

gibson by Erik C Lindgren Fine Art, on Flickr

This is a D&D build for PSC

[Pacific Limited]

IMG_6977 by Erik C Lindgren Fine Art, on Flickr