First effort at freelancing a freight car -- BC shortline

[tgovebaker]

My wife and I recently bought a new house, but can't move in for two more months. This has meant that continuting to build out my nascent layout makes no sense, and that I need to find something else to occupy my time. So, for the first time, I thought I would take a crack at painting and decal-ing [is that a word?] a freight car. After digging through some forum posts (both here and at OGR), I downloaded some painting and decaling info from Kalmbach and did my best to figure out what I was doing

I picked up a used Weaver 3-bay ACF car in BN colors at Tinplate Junction in Oaktwon and let it sit while I figured out what to do with it. My wife's brother and I recently went up to BC for a week of backcountry skiing, and in the process discovered the Kelowna Pacific, a short-line affiliate of the CN that operates in the Okanagan Valley east of Vancouver. I did some web-based research but didn't come up with much, so I figured I might as well free-lance the car (though I did download the KPR logo off the web).

I made the decals myself, using a laser printer, and used a basic can of grey spray paint atop a layer of primer. I couldn't find any Micro Set for Micro Sol anywhere, so I used Walther's Solvaset. Once the decals had set, I coated everything with Dulcote.

It's not the greatest looking car, but its not bad for a rookie (even my wife was impressed, and she's an artist). I would love to hear your suggestions for enhancing the look of the next round.





-Tom
Grand Lake, Alta, and Truckee

[tgovebaker]

Those pictures didn't turn out right (it's been a while since I posted anything) so I'm trying again:





Hope everyone has a great week.

[FJ and G]

great job. The web is a good source for decals that you can resize, recolor, etc in photoshop

[underworld]

Looks good! Keep it up. [:)]

underworld

[:D][:D][:D][:D][:D]

[IRONROOSTER]

Good job.[^]

Enjoy
Paul

[brianel027]

I do what could conservatively be considered an extensive amount of repainting. And not because I wanted to, but because there are so many roads that are totally ignored in the traditional size range. Or when they do once in a while get represented, they're made so cheap I wound never buy them, or they get the paint wrong. I'd guess that up to 75% of my rolling stock is now custom repainted and even more have their original existing paint jobs altered. With my locos it's nearly 100% repainted.

For example Lionel did a blue Conrail gondola and a red CNJ coast guard scheme hopper. Both were molded color cars and because they didn't used enough color in the plastic stock, they are both translucent. Bluuuug. Even though I had really wanted both cars I just could bring myself to waste money on cars that would require repainting. A few years later Lionel did a gray Erie Lackawanna box car where the gray is several shades too dark and the color of the lettering is wrong too. I wouldn't be so picky but I've seen those box cars... MPC did a better job with the little 8 inch ones as far as getting the color right. K-Line has done some CNJ cars in the past, but because they use white styrene as their base, I ended up repainting some of those cars right back to CNJ just so they would be opaque and not translucent.

I don't need or even want scale size or detail. BUT it would be nice to have quality cars that don't glow when they go by a light, or have a light inside them. And it'd be nice if the color could be at least close to what it's suppose to be. The Lionel Erie Lackawanna blue box car from the mid 1970's isn't even close. Arrrrg! Another one I wanted and just couldn't bring myself to buy because the color was so utterly wrong!!!

As much I as I love some of the northeast fallen flag roads from the 1970's, I also like the current lines of today that have been grossly overlooked in the traditional size range, with a few scant exceptions. And even Williams can't get the Norfolk Southern logo correct on their GP9, NW2 and Center cab switcher.... I've never seen a "squished" NS logo like the ones Williams has. And I've looked all over the internet for one. I can't for the life of me understand why Williams has allowed that wrong logo to be used for so long? Microscale got it right with their decals, so the path seemed obvious.

Just for some info Tom, I think Microscale makes the best decals out there. Of course, the other big decal makers have folded like Champion, Walthers, Hearld King. Heard King was okay, the others used film that was too thick. You really needed the Champion fluid for the Champion decals. The Microscale fluids work just fine. Microscale also makes blank stock for making your own decals. I've found self-made decals come out better when copied through a good copier rather than a laser jet printer. It's more possible to make adjustments to the amount of black you get from a copier over a printer. I always gloss coat everything when I'm done decaling for protection before I do the final coats of Testors Dull Coat. I also use a final coating of Armor All to give the car a semi-sheen look and to protect against dust and light marks.

Use a plastic safe primer first and cover the whole car. I like using a gray, black or rust color primer to also make sure the car will be opaque. If the car is a light color like yellow or orange, you would be advised to use a quick coat of white primer over the gray so that the gray doesn’t alter the yellow or orange color. Always use a glossy paint for decaling. Decals don't adhere well to non-glossy paints. I used to think that using decals was hard and didn't always bring good results. But I realized when I started doing it myself, that many other people who's work I'd seen were not doing it right. I've seen more than my share of poor decaling jobs. It can be done right... just takes a little more time and effort. And it's worth it too. I've repainted the Lionel Waffle Box Cars... any one who does decaling will tell you those are a BIG challenge. But mine look totally professional... even guys at train shows wondered when Lionel had made Conrail or Norfolk Southern Waffle Box Cars till I told them I did them myself. And even then they were impressed that I got the decals into the indentations of those cars so well.

[philo426]

Looks to me like a solid.realistic freight car that one would see in the real world.Not very flashy,but many acf center-flow hoppers have fancy paint schemes.A good effort!

[philo426]

Sorry I meant to say that not many acf-center-flow hopper have fancy paint schemes.