Weathering WOOD box/reefers

[Anonymous]

A lot of the info I've seen pertains to metal cars and structures, or unpainted wood, but what about DS box cars, cabeese and reefers? Single-sheathed box and stock cars? Dirt is dirt, sure, but I think that rust techniques are incorrect, except for around grabs, etc...
I model the 30's, so I have many wood cars in need of reality checks (dirt, weathering, you know...) I'd rather start on my simple kits before moving on to my more detailed kits. Oh, I have no airbrush, either, mostly due to the cost of a compressor.
Dean

[Anonymous]

Dean-I recently posted a question about weathering with acrylics and got a lot of really good tips.Many of the replies also mentioned using washes(either thinned acrylics or india ink which could be used for plastic or wood)drybrushing,chalks etc. I found them to be very helpful. I have also gotten some useful information from Model Railroader. They ran an article in the June 2002 issue on painting with a brush,washes and drybrushing. I found it helpful. I am at the stage with my layout where the buildings are done and weathered and am now ready to do my loco and rolling stock and like you I am going to experiment on an old boxcar and see what works best befor getting to the good stuff.
Hope this helped a little. Good luck-Bob

[Anonymous]

Dean
I'd go along with what Bob's had to say and would add the following:

Nothing looks like wood more than wood - there are still a few old wood kits out there - I recently picked up a NWSL B&M snowplow kit really cheap, check out the discount bins at your local hobby store and swap meets or flea markets;

If you use plastic kits check out the following articles "A flatcar full of tractors" - MR July 2002 and "Making styrene look like wood" - MR October 2001 which will give you some good techniques. Probably the most interesting tool referred to there is the fibreglass pencil although you can get similar results with very fine wet'n'dry sandpaper if you're careful. I use all kinds of ink washes to try and recreate wood in plastic.

James (Hampshire, England)

[CNJ831]

Dean - I second the suggestions for use of chalks and washes. One thing to be careful about, however, is not to over-weather freight cars from this period. While they may show road dust, roof darkening from soot, and slight fading of paint colors and heralds, DS wooden cars of the 1930's were still generally in pretty good shape and certainly not the rolling wrecks sometimes depicted on modelers' layouts. Try searching the web for some period B&W yard photos to get an impression of the condition of various rolling stock to act as a guide.

John