Weathering Challenge winners!

bremner · Dec 30, 2015

Each month, the winner of the http://micro-trainsline.com weathering challenge will be posted here. The first winner is nscalestation!

nscalestation said: ↑

This is my entry for the weathering contest.

Here is the before shot. I started with a Micro-Trains 40ft plug door box car in Great northern Blue, MT P/N 74030. According to the car information on the box GN 6646 was one of a group 1953 era box cars that had been rebuilt and repainted in 1967 and at that time the roof walks were removed.

GN6646b by nscalestation posted Dec 10, 2015 at 10:34 PM

And this is the reference photo I worked from. Found it on rrphotoarchives.com and it was taken by Ron Hawkins in March 1977. I found this car to be interesting as it has had a door replaced or re-painted by BN but has not yet been renumbered and still carries the reporting mark GN 6667.

GN 6667 by nscalestation posted Dec 10, 2015 at 10:34 PM

I didn’t take any while I was working on this but here are the steps I followed.

Fading – Using a pencil eraser dipped in Micro-sol, I rubbed the white lettering in circular motion to get the effect I wanted. This is a technique that I have used for removing numbers on cars and locomotives that I was renumbering. Next as the blue on the model seemed a bit intense compared to the prototype photo, I airbrushed the entire car body with a mixture white transparent acrylic paint tinned with windshield washer fluid. This method I learned about from this post on the N Scale Addiction Blog.

Floquil paints – CN green was applied by brush to the door and two small raised panels on one side of the model. I didn’t have any BN green on hand and the CN green seems quite close when compared to a BN box car I have. To simulate the very dark areas on the roof and bottom portions of the sides I dry brushed with weathered black.

Decals – Data panels were applied to match the locations in the reference photo.

Dull Coat - The entire car body was given a coat.

Powders – I used the Bradgon weathering powers in various colors. Black was used to soften and expand the areas that had received the black dry brushing.

Dull Coat - The entire car body was finished with another coat to seal the powders.

The underframe and outsides of the truck side frames were airbrushed with Floquil Oxide red. The wheels were replaced with Micro-Trains brown wheel sets.

Here are a couple of shots of the finished of the side of the car that had the green door. In the prototype photo there were some areas along the bottom that were very black. I choose to do this in a smaller area only.

GN6646L by nscalestation posted Dec 10, 2015 at 10:34 PM

GN6646k by nscalestation posted Dec 10, 2015 at 10:34 PM

And here is a shot of the side of the car that is not shown in the prototype photo.

GN6646g by nscalestation posted Dec 10, 2015 at 10:34 PM

This has been great fun, both working on my project and seeing the work of others.
Click to expand...

BoxcabE50 · Dec 30, 2015

Congratulations to nscalestation!

JimJ · Dec 30, 2015

Congratulations to you!

RBrodzinsky · Dec 30, 2015

Congrats, Brad! Nice work

Rocket Jones · Dec 30, 2015

Congrats! All the entries were pretty incredible, and have inspired me to take a shot at weathering my fleet.

marty coil · Dec 30, 2015

Congratulations...Very Nice!!!!

nscalestation · Dec 31, 2015

Thanks everyone, and thanks to John and the TB staff for putting this contest together and Micro-Trains for providing the prizes.

Before this I had not done very much rolling stock weathering, mostly just structures. I think I am now hooked !

In a few days John will be announcing the January weathering challenge. Hopefully we will get many more TB members to join in on the fun.

bremner · Dec 31, 2015

Brad, I'll give you a hint....the prize is this!

One car, both sides

subwayaz · Dec 31, 2015

Very nice Car and Congrats

Nick Lorusso · Dec 31, 2015

Congrats Brad.

nscalestation · Jan 1, 2016

bremner said: ↑

Brad, I'll give you a hint....the prize is this! View attachment 167550
View attachment 167551
One car, both sides
Click to expand...

Micro-Trains did a great job on that release, I found this prototype photo.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=445638

badlandnp · Jan 1, 2016

Congrats Brad!
I may have a pic of that MRL in new paint some where in my archive of film/photos from when I worked at Livingston...........

mtntrainman · Jan 1, 2016

nscalestation said: ↑

Micro-Trains did a great job on that release, I found this prototype photo.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=445638
Click to expand...

Took a second to figure out what looks odd. The model has to many ribs

Joe D'Amato · Jan 4, 2016

No soup for you !

nscalestation · Jan 14, 2016

The other day my prize from the December weathering challenge arrived in the mail. I proudly showed my wife, told her this is what I won. She took a look and said "It looks old".

Again, thanks everyone.

bremner · Jan 14, 2016

nscalestation said: ↑

The other day my prize from the December weathering challenge arrived in the mail. I proudly showed my wife, told her this is what I won. She took a look and said "It looks old".

Again, thanks everyone.

View attachment 168022
Click to expand...

Glad that you got it, I really wanted to keep it

BoxcabE50 · Jan 14, 2016

nscalestation said: ↑

I proudly showed my wife, told her this is what I won. She took a look and said "It looks old".
Click to expand...

Seems as though that would mean M-T did a good job! At least she didn't say it looked cute.....

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