Still waiting for some shop time to get my cabinet boxes cut out, I started getting the layout cleaned off and staged in hopes of another Ops session. While I was doing this an old nagging feeling arose which was the need for some loads on those empty open cars like flat cars, gons and open hoppers. One of the industries, Heavy Metal needs flat cars with steel loads. I have enough flat cars but was a little short on Bulkhead flats. Started snooping around to purchase a few more and couldn't believe the cost of them these days! After digging through my detail stash I found some old Red Caboose bulkhead kits from years ago. They made some nice bulkhead kits to convert flat cars back in the day before anyone made them. So I sat down at the bench one night got three Athearn 53'ers converted. You can see more on the Blog Last night I played around with something I've been wanting to do for years! That is to do something about those FAKE looking wood decks! I know there are some Peel-N-stick kits made from laser cut wood that look awesome, but at $3.49 per deck, I figured I could weather them myself for a fraction of that. So I visited my old friend Google in search of "Making plastic look like wood" and stumbled across an article where a guy used cheap acrylic paint and a wash to turn plastic molded decks into realistic looking wood decks. Here's a couple of quick shots until I get things posted to the blog. May not be perfect, but beats the hell out of the factory, mono colored decks! Next I'll have to get out my weathering kits and attack the whole cars.
Weathered decks look Great!! Simple process? Might have to look into it, since I have a few flats, a couple of bulkheads and several center beams!
Yup Keith, pretty simple. Just need some cheap acrylic paint and a brush. Here's the link to the blog update, and inside the post look for the link (in orange) for the original link where I found the idea. bulkhead-flats-anyone-pt2.html? I concur. I need to do a little more to the decks, they still look a little too light. Maybe add some more browns for over all coloring and then some black for some grease/oil spills.
speaking of weathered and looking good - whose Alco is that in the last pic? don't reckin I know those reporting marks . . . .
Thanks Philip! Karl, you're close. This was an engine that a buddy owned and it started out as a Lehigh & Hudson River, like this one: He then sent it off to Jim Wiggens for a weathering job and it came back as you see it now: My buddy models early Conrail and and fell in love with ALCo's. Since then he thinned his herd and it found it's way down to Malvern, AR and joined the all ALCo fleet the W&OV has been building up. So - L&HR > CR > W&OV [Warren & Ouchita Valley] I need to get the new reporting marks on the unit before the FRA offers me a pink slip!
Almost forgot to post the updates and "how to" of the flats, sorry. Here is the link to the new blog post. I followed what he [the author to the link found in the blog post] did with the exception of scraping the decks and moved right on to applying the white paint that was diluted just enough so that it flowed easily but didn't run. I applied the paint to decks without applying any dull coat for added tooth. It seemed to grab just fine. I used a bottle of brown and black acrylic as I wanted the decks to still have a brown color. After the white coat dried, I applied the brown/black wash coat directly over the white wash. I thinned it down but not quite as much as I did with the white undercoat. This I brushed on and spread it out randomly and let it dry. I went back a few times and added a stronger dose of un-thinned black and brown and spread it out a bit so as to give the look of oil spills and non bleached wood. I think I could give them a bit more of this treatment because to my eyes they look a little light yet? As someone said elsewhere "Try using a coat or two of India Ink wash to make things pop a bit more" Then I'll sealed them with a flat finish. In retrospect, I suppose one could go back and make some large scrapes or even "Chip" in some of the existing boards to show some damage or heavy use but for now these will work. Regardless it's a vast improvement over the stock deck. BTW I did these without dismantling the cars. I tried to clean off the metal parts on the deck, but wasn't too worried about it as they will receive weathering sooner or later. The next step will be to attack the cars with weathering to make them look worn like the decks. I'm also working on some loads for my flat car fleet.
I've done much the same thing on flats I have - especially old Atlas 50 footers. It works remarkably well. For variety you might get an off-white or cream as your base coat.
You know Philip? I think you're right. It reminds me of what Gary mentioned in his Fading Fast technique. When he used the bright white to fade with, it gave a frosty effect. So he switched to a ages or creamy white. This would keep the brown a little browner. I'll have to give it a try the next time. Thanks
Got some steel plate loads done over the weekend. I started with .030" Styrene sheets and cut them to scale 8' x 20', 30', 40' and 45' long. I posted the "how to" the blog.
Looks great!! I forgot to mention the other night, at Cat we received our plate in 10'x20' . We would then run it through a shot blaster, then flame cut the sheet in half to make material handling more efficient and safer. Our plasma cut tables were set up to handle 10'x10' sections of plate. I think the mkt car,, rocks,, just right touch with weathering. And the plate weathering is also mucho realistic. See ya
