Almost a year ago, I lettered an undecorated San Juan Car Company tank car for that rare combination of "frameless but non-Gramps". There is a listing in Narrow Gauge Pictorial Vol. IV on page 176 that I used as a starting point. According to that list, most narrow gauge frameless UTLX cars had the GRAMPS decoration. Then, there were some non-Gramps ones in Road Oil Service. Of the few potential prototypes suitable for my project, I selected car #UTLX 88174, as that particular one is depicted in Sloan's book on page 356 (2nd ed. , or p. 300 in the first edition). Everything went smoothly and I had a fine model at the end; except that there were a few milky areas after I had sprayed the car with a matt (enamel) finish. These lighter areas were not directly decal related, as can be seen on the first two of the attached pictures. I then intended to hide those areas with some weathering. And that's when disaster struck. I still had some Tamiya "smoke" spray that I had used a few times in the past with mostly good success. So I used that spray for my new model, and I must have overdone things for one reason or another. At any rate, the car's finish started to wrinkle, and the decals started to soften and shrink. By the time I realized what was happening, I already had a pretty much botched model, as can be seen in the third picture here. I was so mad at myself as I then remembered that I did have problems in the past at least once, and I should thus have used the spray very sparingly at best. Thus, that damaged car was stashed away, out of sight. And I actually forgot about this car until I recently ran into some unplanned problems with another tank car (that's going to be a separate thread later on). It then took me a while to actually find that well hidden (it seemed) car again. Despite the still sad sight, this time, after about 11 months, I was able to keep my temper under control to a point that allowed me a cool analysis of how to proceed. Just throwing away this car was out of the question. And a complete removal of the paint with a subsequent redoing of it all seemed more work than I was willing to put into this car. Thus, I decided to try to convert this model into a very heavily weathered car, as one can often find in the photos as well.
The old finish had hardened of course, but the wrinkling remained. I then tried to remove as much of the actually loose material, trying not to damage any more of the decal material. I also tried to smoothen the borders a bit without damaging the underlying black coat. I speculated that some of the wrinkling would soften and reattach with a new coat of finish. I tried the matt clear enamel and found my speculation confirmed to a point. But the damage was still very obvious. To hide it better, I added a coat of matt black as well, but trying to let some of the decaling shine through. The result can be seen in the attached set of pictures. Over all, the car is now a useful addition again in any consist. Though one can easily still see the damage in some light. Photos taken at the "right" angle can be very unforgiving, as shown. Also, I feel that my original intention of having a frameless but non-Gramps car is compromised to a point that I might do another one if I find a undecorated model in the future. The present car is weathered so much, that it might almost have a worn Gramps lettering underneath. Not what I wanted, it should have been a more obvious non-Gramps.
Actually as pictured it does begin to vaguely resemble a standard gauged tank car at a museum I have seen. The paint on that prototype had suffered some from age and weather.
