It's been a while since I've posted anything, although I watch the amazing work here almost every day. For those of you who remember, my interest is narrow gauge in eastern Kentucky and I have a number of in-progress models I've posted over the years. All of them are waiting on my painting and weathering ability to improve, so I've decided to start a "quick" project to practice some painting techniques.
Many years ago I picked an ancient Bob Hartford kit in an unmarked box on eBay. The box was sealed, but I didn't know the scale or contents. I paid pennies for it - back before the prices of his kits skyrocketed - and it turned out to be a Southern Pacific boxcar, but in 1:24 scale. I model in 1:20.3, so that was a bummer. After letting it collect dust for years, I've decided it's a good candidate for experimentation, and if it turns out horribly, no big loss.
So here's my narrative to justify running a 1:24 scale boxcar with the rest of my rolling stock. This was an early 24 foot car built in the early years of the narrow gauge craze, and it was eventually retired by its original owner. Later purchased by a lumber company, repaired, mildly upgraded, and used for transporting supplies, tools, etc. And maybe a little bit of advertising along the way.
Logging in eastern Kentucky was focused on a number of hardwood species, but poplar was especially abundant and marketable. I've decided to base the model on a imaginary car owned by the Kentucky River Poplar Company, which was a real company. It owned several sawmills along the Kentucky River, including a large one at Valley View. The photo of the Southern Lumber Company mill was later purchased by the KRPC.
And here's what I've come up with. I'm going to make a few changes to upscale the car, including increasing it's height, replacing obvious items that are too small with 1:20.3 items - brake wheel, couplers, etc. I'm also going to replace the wheelsets with 24" wheels better sized for the larger scale.
I based the graphics on examples of billboard reefers from this book, which is excellent, but I've obviously taken some liberties. Part of my motivation is to dry some different graphics in addition to painting and weathering. I have a new laser cutter at my office and I'm going to try cutting some painting masks for the larger graphics. We'll see how it goes.
Anyway, that's the introduction to the project. Please be patient with me on the progress. I don't have a lot of modeling time, so no promises on how long this will take...
Eric, that's going to be a nice looking car.
I like your plausible prototype approach with the car.
I've got two similar sort of plausible cars. One is a one-of-a-kind short tank car for a real product by a real company that once operated in this general area, but it was never big enough to ship anything by rail.
The other is a billboard milk car from a New Jersey dairy that I removed the advertising painting on the sides but left the large dairy name because it could plausibly be a milk car from Connecticut, where my RR is.
Coincidently both cars also happen to be white and I like having some variety in rolling stock colors.
Keep us updated when you can, it looks like it will be a "poplar" project on the forum.
It's good to see you back on the forum and actually starting work on a new project. I was afraid you gave up the hobby. -- Russ
"Poplar" huh Bill?!
I had some time over the long weekend to get started. The original floor included in the kit wasn't scribed or anything, so I added some planking and replaced the framing with larger members. I also epoxied some weight over each king pin so the car will ride better. (This photo is actually from another project, but I did the same thing with this car.)
For the base color on the floor structure, I first stained the basswood with various mixtures of Silverwood, Blackwood, and Deadwood from Builders in Scale, and then once the wood was dry, I lightly sprayed hairspray over everything. This makes the wood fuzz stiffer for the next step, but doesn't prevent the wood from absorbing later steps like a clear coat would. Then I brush painted everything with black acrylic - Vallejo Model Color 70.950. Once this dried I sanded everything with 600 grit before starting assembly. The sanding removes the paint from the high spots, and gets rid of most of the fuzz. I'm fairly happy with it as a starting point for weathering.
Eric, 'poplar'... a poor, I-should-go-stand-in-the-corner-for-saying-it-pun for 'popular'.
Meanwhile, your floor and underframe are looking good.
Bob Hartford would find this thread fascinating but at last report his eyesight had seriously declined. -- Russ
I have a bunch of his kits waiting to be built - they're just beautifully done. They also lend themselves to modification, which is important for modeling eastern narrow gauge.
I had a bit of time this week to make some progress. I have the bulk of the car body assembled and glued to the frame. I ended up making some revisions along the way. The most obvious one is increasing the height of the car. I did this by adding a skirt board all the way around the top of the car sides. This let me increase the height by a scale 7", or 0.345 inches. It's still a tiny car compared to a 3000 D&RG boxcar, but it's slightly more believable.
One consequence of this decision was the scribed roofing sheets were too small once I added the skirt boards. I solved this by laser cutting new sheets with a more proper overhang. I scribed the edges of the sheets at each joint to make the sheets look more like individual boards. I was tempted to do a double-sheathed roof, but I keep reminding myself this project is about painting practice, and not precision fabrication.
I added a bit of surface detail that will hopefully show up once everything is painted. I added subtle nail heads at the base of each siding board, and along the intermediate wall framing in line with the metal reinforcements at the corners. I did this with a 0.5mm technical pencil without any lead in it. This makes a tiny circular indentation in the wood's surface. I've also added some scratches behind the door, and dinged up the door's edges and frame at the side with the hasp.
Bob's original kit had strips of wood for the door tracks, and I've replaced these with brass strips for more durability and handling. I also like the smooth surface of the metal rather than woodgrain under the paint.
And here's where I am on the underside of the frame. I used the hardware that came with the kit, but I upsized the brass rod used for the truss rods to a more realistic size for 1:20.3 scale. The white metal castings have been dipped in MIG Burnishing Fluid as a base for later weathering. I think this works better than A-West's Blacken-It.
I painted the brass truss rods using a variety of materials as an experiment. One was primed with Mr. Hobby Mr. Metal Primer-R, one with Vallejo 73.615 USN Ghost Grey primer, and one with Tamiya Metal Primer. The final one was scuffed with 400 grit sandpaper, but no primer. All four were top coated with Vallejo Model Color 70.862 Black Gray. This is not quite a true black, so it should be easier to get these pieces to appear similar to the white metal castings. Time will tell.
All of my rolling stock is only equipped with hand brakes and link-and-pin couplers since the logging railroad I model was not a common carrier.
Cool project!
I really like the look of that sawmill. Are you planning to build that at some point?
I hope the nail heads show up through the paint. The truss rod paint job looks quite good. -- Russ
I'd love to Ray, but I don't have a layout or anything. I mostly enjoy rolling stock, and at this point, everything needs to fit on bookshelves. I'm not too far from retirement, so who knows what will happen at that point.
There were actually two large sawmills at Valley View, Kentucky, plus a major railroad bridge, plus a US Government-operated lock and dam. And on top of all of that, a ferry across the Kentucky River. This ferry is still in operation and is Kentucky's oldest continuously operating business. The ferry boat flies the flag of the state of Virginia because the charter was issued when Kentucky was still part of Virginia. (Before 1792.)
It's an amazing place because so many different forms of transportation converge in one place. I've attached some more images of the area. Two of the images are blow-ups of a postcard.
I was in Boston last week for the national architect's convention, so no progress to report. I did run across this photo in a Facebook group on pre-1895 modeling, and it makes me feel better about my up-scaled 1:24 car in a 1:20.3 world. There's a prototype for everything I guess...
I had some time last week to work on some more details on the car body. I added a small loading door on one end. The white parts are resin castings I made from some of the white metal castings in the original kit. The door is non-operational since there's no interior in the car.
I also added a platform on the B end of the car, matching early cars built by the Ohio Falls Car Company and others. (The builder's photo shows a Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific furniture car.)
Looking good!
Flawless. -- Russ
Very nice!
I love the photo of the mismatched box cars.
I had some time to work on the boxcar over the weekend. At this point fabrication and assembly is basically finished, with the exception of the running boards on the rooftop. (I'll add those after the roof is painted.)
I mostly worked on the trucks, starting by adding brake gear and the brake beams. The car I'm modeling would have had body-hung brake beams, but these are too fiddly for a car that could some day run, so I'm compromising and supporting the brake beams from each truck. You can see the brass rods supporting the brake beams in the photo. I've also had to epoxy a brass washer on the bolster to get the couple height correct on the car body. Most of the truck parts are from the original Hartford kit, but I've replaced some of the brake gear parts with the correct 1:20.3 equivalents. I can't remember if the new parts are from Hartford, Ozark, or someone else.
For the wheelsets, I added sheet brass overlays for the raised lettering and the faux ribs on the backside of the wheels. (I described this process in one of my earlier threads - these are just home-made photoetch parts made out of brass shim stock.)
I started painting the wheelsets with a base coat of MIG-2006 Rust Primer applied with an air brush, followed by sponge painted layers of MIG-042 Old Rust and MIG-041 Dark Rust. I did a bit of drybrushing with MIG-040 Medium Rust to pick out the details, especially the lettering.
Once that was dry, I did multiple layers of pin washes, starting with MIG-1002 Tracks Wash. This is an enamel, and it reminded me of how much I hate working with enamels. For the next washes I switched to oils, using Abt 502 125 Light Mud, Abt 502 006 Burnt Umber, and Abt 502 093 Raw Sienna. I used a hair dryer to speed up the drying between washes.
For the truck frames, I blackened the cast parts with MIG-2020 Burnishing Fluid, and painted the brass parts with Tamiya Metal Primer. Wood parts were first stained with Builders In Scale Silver Wood, and then brush painted with Vallejo 70.950 Black. Once the paint had dried, I sanded the surfaces with 220 grit to remove some of the paint and expose the wood underneath.
I brush painted most of the details with Vallejo 70.994 Dark Gray once everything was assembled, and then drybrushed everything with Tamiya XF-66 Light Gray. I added some black pigment underneath the journal lids for texture to represent dried grease. And finally I did a series of pin washes using a variety of Abt 502 oil paints. The sequence was black first, followed by raw umber, light mud, a rust-colored concoction, black again, finishing with a little more rust in select locations. There's no science to any of this - I just kept adding layers until the trucks looked something like a couple of reference photos.
And here's where I ended up...
It must have taken a couple of hours to detail and weather the wheels. -- Russ
Eric,
Your 28 ft boxcar model is looking super! It helps me believe that the broken 28 Ft Mantua Civil War boxcar I salvaged to deliver lumber to a lumberyard on my layout is at least 'plausible' because it also has a small lumber door on the end.
And I like how you added the brakes to the trucks. Although this boxcar has more modern trucks and safety gear, I contrived a sort of similar way to add brakes to one truck on a mantua Civil War gondola for a friend. That was an interesting challenge as yours appears to have been too. Good stuff there.
That looks great Bill! I assume 1:87 scale?
I sent some updates via email while the forum was down, so I'm going to catch this thread up based on the emails.
Below is a progress shot from 7/13. The graphics are finished, and most of the painting is done on the car body. I still have some details to add like the roof boards.
I got some questions about the graphics after sending that last photo:
"I've made the transfers from scratch, and it's been hard fought. As I said at the beginning of the thread on the forum, this project is an experiment in painting and finishing, so I'm trying lots of different methods for everything. The full color car numbers are decals I made using a color laser printer and clear decal film from Micromark. Nothing special about that. On one side of the car I applied the decal over a glossier surface, and the other one more satin, just to see how the Microscale solutions would handle the surface texture. One the white background I couldn't tell much of a difference.
The white numbers on the car ends are Woodland Scenic dry transfers, but I applied them on clear decal film to see if it would be easier to align the individual characters on the bench rather than trying to apply them directly on the end of the car body. It was much easier, but I really hate working with decals. I got quite a bit of silvering on the dark red background on the satin surfaces. Hopefully I can remedy this weathering. For all of the decals I cut the decals at each joint in the siding once they had dried a bit, and then reapplied the setting solution."
For the blackline graphics, I used the DecalProFX system, which is a fairly complex multi-step process.
It goes something like this, in simplified form believe it or not:
1. You print your graphics using a laser printer on a special transfer paper from DecalPro. (I generated my graphics using Adobe InDesign.) A wide border around each graphic helps with later steps.
2. You select the color you want the transfers to be using a special transfer film. In this case I chose a black film.
3. You place the film on top of the printed graphic and run it through a laminating machine to melt the colored film to the toner on the laser print. Then you peel the film off of the printed page. At this point the film is still bonded to the toner.
4. You place a thin sheet of mylar on the top of the graphic and run it through the laminator. This forms a static bond between the mylar and the film/toner layer.
5. You soak the mylar/paper in water for a few minutes. There's a coating on the transfer paper that dissolves in water, allowing the mylar and graphics to separate from the transfer paper.
6. You dry the film, and then spray the back side with a special spray adhesive.
7. Then you apply the graphic to the model surface like a regular dry transfer, and peel off the mylar film.
The result is a graphic that is as crisp and precise as the original laser print. I'm really happy with the results, but with some footnotes. I had a fairly high failure rate with creating the transfers. Each of the steps in the process failed multiple times, but I attribute most of this to my mistakes. I suppose I'll get better with practice. The finished surfaces of the transfers is fairly glossy. A coating of satin varnish solved this problem. I also had trouble with some of the fine line work and serifs on the small lettering - you can see a gap in one of the lines in the attached photos. Again, maybe weathering can deal with these spots.
Very interesting! Thanks for describing the process.
Volker
I started the weathering process over the weekend, for good or for bad. My first step was to spray the entire car with a very thin layer of a dust color using Tamiya XF-57 Buff. I like how this toned everything down and blended the colors a bit. I've lost some contrast though, so I'm hoping I can get this back with some washes. I'm going to tackle the underside of the car first since it will be mostly hidden from view. This will let me experiment without terribly visible results if I don't like the outcome.
One lesson I have learned. On previous models I have pre-painted the individual parts as much as possible before doing the final assembly. I did this in places, but in some locations - like the door hardware and corner braces - I assembled things first and then hand painted the components. I see armor modelers working this way a lot. I don't know if it's just my lack of hand painting skill, or something else, but I hated working this way. I just couldn't get the crisp demarcations between colors like I'm used to.
Either your camera is hiding imperfections or you're overly critical of your work. -- Russ
Probably a bit of both...
Eric -
I'm with Russ on this one. From what I can see all is looking very good --- most satisfactory.
Stuart
I started weathering on the underbody with a wash of ABT 502 Light Mud 125, thinned with an odorless Turpenoid. I mostly concentrated on the metal fittings because the wood framing absorbed so much of the wash that you couldn't see any effect. Lesson learned - I should have sprayed a mat varnish on the wood first.
The dust wash was followed by a wash of ABT 502 Light Rust 060.
I applied splatters above the trucks using the same dust wash, followed by washes of ABT 502 Earth 093 and ABT 502 Dark Mud 130, working light to dark on the colors.
Once all of that was done, I wasn't happy with how the rust-over-dust washes made a sort of orange sherbet color in places, so I applied an overall wash of ABT 502 Black 004. This toned things down a bit and I'm happier with the results.
As a last step, I did a little bit of dry brushing here and there with Tamiya XF-66 Light Grey.
And here's where I am. I'm calling this finished for now. The roof is next.
Looks good, Eric. I've also gotten 'orange sherbert' once or twice with rust over dust or dust over rust. You toned it down nicely.
Looks good enough to run the car upside down. -- Russ
Looking good in fact excellent
Barney
Fantastic work! 8)
Thanks for the encouragement everyone!
Beautiful!
Did you get the fonts from Letterhead Fonts Company?
Good eye Ray - I did!
Making a little bit of progress - things have been really busy lately. A family reunion in Missouri. Classes started for the semester and I've got my heaviest teaching load ever. Major project deadlines at my day job. Lots of excuses...
So far everything is done with various washes of oil paints. I'm not very satisfied yet, but we shall see.
How much more you do would depend on the level of weathering you want. The car currently looks as though it's been in service for about a year. Everything is nice and subtle. Anything more than a few dabs of weathering powders could be a gamble.
Given your real life commitments, you might want to invest your limited time in a new model, maybe one that begins with weathering effects prior to assembly.
Besides, we rarely find our models satisfactory until we haven't seen them for a couple of months.
Russ
All good thoughts Russ. I haven't decided how far to take things, or to put it another way, how new or old the car is supposed to be. I figure I'll know it when I see it if that makes sense.
I have a couple of other projects in the works, but all of them have stalled because of my dissatisfaction with my painting skills. This boxcar has been a useful test bed for a couple of techniques. I envy the armor, aviation, and naval modelers because there are so many options for weathering metal surfaces. I find painted wood SO much harder - at least for me. Part of the challenge is also the effort per part I'm willing to invest. Chuck Done has clearly mastered the art of weathering wood and I'm looking for methods that approximate his perfection, but with a level of time and effort that I reconcile with building a rolling stock inventory of 15-20 cars. In this lifetime!
Another progress shot. At this point I've just applied some basic color variation before starting with wear, dirt, soot.