Hi there trainboard... It's been ages I know! I'm finally finding some time to get back to the workbench and thought an old Athearn Blue Box weathering project would be a good start - I've been reading a lot about new weathering techniques and was keen to try them out. I had this old Penn Central "Railbox" from Athearn that I know is not very close to any particular prototype but was looking for some inspiration and found this: Sweet - yeah I know totally different car end to the Athearn model and different rib patterns but the red plug door - turns out I already have one of those for a Soo Line project that I decided not to use and well it even fit the Athearn opening so I had the basis for a bit of an interesting, if not accurate, model. And I had already fit DW cushioned couplers at some point in the past. All I needed to do was carve off some of the excess sliding door locking hardware: PC 167338 Before by Rob Barker, on Flickr
Now, as usually happens with me... I didn't want to use the molded on grab irons as those are hard to weather and still look right. Then the stirrups looked too big. Then I thought I would extend the side sills to match the 'prototype' and - well that was good practice for some Soo Line box cars I have to do... and would look great with Titchy stirrups. Then the end ladders didn't look right. And well I had some DA freight car brake detail bits for the end and underframe... Well I'd gone this far... Picked up some nice etched lift bars and this is also my first effort with the beautiful Hi-Tech brake hoses... quite a super detailed model now, and all for a weathering refresher experiment! I airbrushed all the new bits with a 1:4 mix of Reefer White : PC Green (ModelFlex) and - I know that was too light for the car and oversprayed it a bit (well a lot) and rubbed off most the excess with Q-tips. That helped 'fade' the paint a little and weather the lettering a bit. Here's what the model looks like now. PC 167338 by Rob Barker, on Flickr PC 167338 by Rob Barker, on Flickr PC 167338 by Rob Barker, on Flickr next step, weathering washes and getting that roof really really rusty! Wish me luck
It's good to be back.... Looking at the photos I found the oversize poling pockets really stood out so... now they are gone. I decided to live with the stirrups as they are and fade the paint a bit more. I did the fade in two steps, one with PC Green/White mix over spray with the airbrush. I liked how this made the logos appear to have thinned and let some green show through, however it was overall too strong an effect. Took a fair bit of the over spray off the logos with q-tips (there's still some green in and around the ribs but that's gonna end up dirty later so I left it.) Phase 2 was Artist Acrylic Mixing White thinned heavily with a water/windex mix and applied with brush and cosmetic sponge - I think 4 coats - some coats with matte medium mixed in. I found those layers were harder to work with and will skip the matte medium in the future. Thought later as one of the coats were drying that the thin Mixing White would probably go through the airbrush with ease... might have to try that next time. Oh yeah, added the ACI label in between fade coats... It is newer after all. Anyway - this is what it looks like now. About as faded as I'm comfortable with (I model early 90's and the reference photo is 2002.) I may hit the ACI label with a tiny bit of white... Other than that - it's time for a Raw Umber wash and then get that roof really rusty! PC 167338 faded by Rob Barker, on Flickr
And with a bit of a Raw Umber wash. I must say I'm finding the Winsor Newton Artist Acrylics really easy to work with thinned with Windex only. The matte medium I was adding early made it dry too fast and it was really hard to take off if you added to much. The bad news - Modelflex pain (with which I used to paint the added details) is very easily removed with Windex. I'll have to remember to hit the model with a coat of dullcote before i start weathering next time PC 167338 first wash by Rob Barker, on Flickr Next step - more rusting of the roof, door, sills etc - the detailed weathering part (edit) anyone know how to edit the older posts? I republished the other images at flickr - changing the images static url - the links still go to the photo page but the img tag needs to be corrected... seems there's a time limit set on the edit post thing
Looks Great Rob! Here's a bunch of rolling stock that I've weathered over the past week.. Some of it is by photo... Some of it is what I think looks good! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJeb6XlIoyg
It surely has been a while! As seen in the sample photo, I'm watching to learn how you achieve the final weather bleached effect.
