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PM Sent!

Several years ago I designed a freelance American ore car from an earlier era. Your model's hardware and body design are similar in some ways to what I drew. -- Russ

Hauk,

I thoroughly enjoy every rare post of your progress with that outstanding model. I recall that there was a discussion about wood coloring; I'm still convinced that the wood appearance would benefit from a rather greyish subsurface than this bright brownish one. And I just say that to live up to my reputation as a nitpicker. I can't wait to see pictures of the finished models in natural light.

Volker

Ok, again I must confess that I am a huge fan of your wagon models. To me, it's on of the finest craftmanship I know and the subject is absolute my taste.
But... Volkers points out a fact that I a) couldn't put into word, and b) I did not dare to say as the whole work is far above the level I will ever achieve.
I don't know how far you are willing to go with the wathering. From my point of view, you have the problem (or choice?) to try a heavy weathering with the risk to spoil all your fantastic work or you leave them as they are (perhaps with some subtle weathering) but in return you will obtain that feeling of wood and metal.
I always hate such decisions and put them off as long as I can. But you surely feel, where my heart is...
Yes, I hope to motivate you to go the risky way neverthelss!

Cheers,
Peter

Volker makes a valid point, and I will give the wooden parts an wash of light grey stain. I just have to muster the courage! The light brown color is a result of distressing the wood after painting, the sandpaper cut right through the grey stained color under the red topcoat. But as this "opens" the wood, the parts should take stain well without darkening the red too much. I have tried it on a test piece way back, and I have sort of forgot about the whole thing!

I will keep you posted. (Pun indeed intended)

Speaking of paint, tonight I painted the wheels for the wagons and started experimenting with the painting of the underframes.
As much as I like the blackened bare metal look, I think the underframes need a bit of paint to blend in with the wheels, and also make the brass castings blend in with the nickel-silver etchings.  At the same time I wanted a hint of the original metal to show through the paint. 
I started with the work car as this one has all the metalwork in place. I started by giving it a good bath in thinner.
Then I mixed up a cup of Tamiya Black (XF2) and dark grey with a ratio of 1+3 black+grey. Thinned it with cellulose thinner (1+2 paint+thinner.) Then I airbrushed a very thin coat to the underframe. The wheels were painted the same color, but with a heavier coat.

After the grey I misted on a layer of Tamiya XF64 reddish brown as the first step of weathering.

I then assembled the wagon, and this is what it looks like right now:
 

 

 

I would love to have sincere opinions on how this looks at the present stage, and how to proceed. All opinions and suggestions are welcome. The wagon needs some more weathering, but not as much as the mineral wagons.

By the way, here is a picture of one of the stencils:



The crude cutouts on each side of the stencil was made with a Dremel by yours truly. The fold-up sides of the stencils came in conflict with the hardware on the wagonside... Looks horrible, but it works. Made masking off the wagon a bit more of a challenge, though. As you can see from the lack of paint in the middle of the stencil, I used a litte glue clamp to keep the stencil as close to the wagon side as possible. Using stencils like this is nt for the faint of hearted, it is very easy to mess up. I have one side on each wagon that are not 100%, but fortunately you can see only one side of the wagons at a time!

I'm not sure what you have in mind for painting the underframe but, to my eye, it might need only a light mist to suggest color rather than something more substantial. -- Russ

Quote from: Hauk on February 15, 2017, 02:36:50 PM
I would love to have sincere opinions on how this looks at the present stage, and how to proceed. All opinions and suggestions are welcome.

Whow, that I a great start indeed and it's already a tremendous difference. As I have never painted a rail wagon (my roots lie in military modeling) I can only assume, what I would do. Definitely I would go with layers of highly diluted paint for better control, as you started here. But, in my opinion, some enamel filter (i.e. MIG products) provides the most effect to the model. Finally a slight overspray with some dust color would blend in all painting steps. Here an good example of what I have in my mind:

The present stage of weathering of the frames looks like clean, painted steel that has been out in the weather and has rusted and faded a little, like a restored wagon on exhibit in an outdoor museum. It is an excellent representation of weathering effects upon the metal itself. However, if the environment these cars operate in is dusty or muddy, then a bit of dust and dried mud will enhance the in-use appearance. Very thin washes rather than shovelfuls troweled onto every surface.

Thanks for all the input! I will proceed carefully with the weathering, and hope to show some progress by the end of the weekend.

After the constructive criticism of the "yellow wood" I decided to try and tone down things with an wash of Silverwood stain. Fortunately, I had the sense to test the stain on a scrap piece  with lettering. It turned out that the rubbing alcohol dissolved the  Tamiya paint in seconds.

So I had to go for something waterbased. I decided to try the oldest trick in the book, diluted india ink. I was a bit concerned that a water based stain would warp the wood parts, so I applied the stain very sparingly. I am a bit uncertain how well it worked.
I think it had some effect, but a little of the improvement is possible due to a more correct white balance ing this latest picture.
But please note that in the second picture  the wooden box  is placed on a  piece of grey cardboard, on the earlier images the models are placed on a much more yellow piece of MDF.

No doubt - it's on it's way. But I think they could be even more greyish. You may try gouache for that, too, but it may take some more water for a good effect - which may be a problem with the wood. Maybe dry applied greyish pigments could work. By the way: Which color/stains would the transported material have left behind?

Volker

Quote from: Hydrostat on February 16, 2017, 01:20:31 PM
By the way: Which color/stains would the transported material have left behind?

Volker

I am certain that the wagons must have been very dusty. The were loaded from the top with rather fine ore. More gravel than coal to put it that way.

I have found some pictures that suggests the colors. They are of are of more modern wagons, but  I think they give the right idea.



Note the ore in the wagon, it looks a bit blueish grey, doesn't it?

But then again, this image suggest that I should use a more reddishbrowngrey:



Maybe it is the braking dust that is dominant? The railroad was all downhill from the mines, so the brakes must have been applied quite a lot.

For the weathering of the caboose/VW i would start with the different "things" that happen;
Oil at the right locations
Grease at the right locations
Some graphite to represent rubbed metal
And some powdered rust where it would occur.
Some brake dust and then finally some road dust. soot and general yuck.
Then a little rain/dust on the body as well.
As others stated; go slow, thin laters over time like real life.

Thanks again for the drawing!

-Marty

Agree with everyone! Love the lettering.....Allan

I'm looking at this page at a few minutes after midnight February20 and some images are missing. I would guess the reason is that they were linked and the links got broken or disappeared when we changed servers. I don't quite know how things like that work when you move all your data from one computer to another but if others are having the same problem as I am, I think we're out of luck. -- Russ