Weathering Rolling Stock and other things, a Continous thread

[TLOC]

I did not know about cleaning the whls thank you so much

Too many unseen oils for paint to flow nicely, I use Isopropyl Alcohol from the dollar store.

TomO

 

[TLOC]

You have seen the trucks and wheelsets. Here is one of the 3 pulp cars to go with them. Questions and suggestions of course are welcome.

One car end, shown above but pictured again below has to be fixed. The white dots, showed up after the last spray of Testors Dull Cote. I will turn those white spots/specks into rust marks and a couple streaks. I have been practicing rust spots on a poor old Athearn Baby high cube from the 70’s.

TomO

 

[TLOC]

Tom the trucks look great. Depending on the car (grain cars for example) I had to paint the inside wheel face and axle because they're so visible, flat cars and gons not so.

Thanks for commenting Tom. I was painting the axle and backside of the wheels. Then stopped and I never really noticed the axle or backside when running trains.

Then, I took a yard picture from ground level, and holy moly axles and backsides are very noticeable. I will now paint the axle and backside of the wheels in the future.
TomO

 

[Greg@mnrr]

Several years ago I was at a train watching location where I can park my vehicle several feet from the UP right of way and watch the trains enter and leave the Butler, Wisconsin yard. The trains run so slow.

One day a 100+ car unit train of covered hoppers arrived and I watched the cars roll bye and observed the differences in the color of the wheels, even on the same car. The colors when from very dark grimy black to a real bright, new rust. There was even a couple of new or refinished wheels in the group. I was amazed at the number of different colors.

After this session I started to paint the axles and wheel back surfaces when painting the fronts after from my advantage point watching trains I could see the axles and the backs of wheels. (The roadway and should er I was on sloped downward from the grade crossing.) I learned that we usually look at a model straight on when we should also look at the model from side and top views.

Greg

 

[logandsawman]

Several years ago I was at a train watching location where I can park my vehicle several feet from the UP right of way and watch the trains enter and leave the Butler, Wisconsin yard. The trains run so slow.

One day a 100+ car unit train of covered hoppers arrived and I watched the cars roll bye and observed the differences in the color of the wheels, even on the same car. The colors when from very dark grimy black to a real bright, new rust. There was even a couple of new or refinished wheels in the group. I was amazed at the number of different colors.

After this session I started to paint the axles and wheel back surfaces when painting the fronts after from my advantage point watching trains I could see the axles and the backs of wheels. (The roadway and should er I was on sloped downward from the grade crossing.) I learned that we usually look at a model straight on when we should also look at the model from side and top views.

Greg

I noticed a wide variation in wheel colors myself, and started using slightly different tones. The lighting comes into play as well.

Dave

 

[gunslinger]

does anyone know what the blue paint on the bearings signify i have seen this on a number of cars and have painted the bearing on both ends to be realistic

 

[gunslinger]

oh,and those pulpwood cars look great

 

[TLOC]

oh,and those pulpwood cars look great

Thank you. I am trying

TomO

 

[TLOC]

does anyone know what the blue paint on the bearings signify i have seen this on a number of cars and have painted the bearing on both ends to be realistic

I went looking online for reasons about the blue bearings. I even went to the Timken website that tells you more about railcar bearings then you ever want to know. But, learned nothing about why they are blue

TomO

 

[CambriaArea51]

does anyone know what the blue paint on the bearings signify i have seen this on a number of cars and have painted the bearing on both ends to be realistic

The blue caps signify Brenco Class K (6.5 x 9)bearings, which came into widespread use after AAR S-286 was passed and made effective Jan 1st 2004. This spec effectively forbade the use of the older Class F (6.5 x 12 )bearings on new 286K freight cars.

 

[gunslinger]

thanks guys for the info on the bearings

 

[TLOC]

I have finished the weathering portion of the 3 pulp cars. I am waiting for approval on these before applying the slash on the deck of each car. In my eyes they are similar but different in rust tones and wheel spray patterns and color

Thanks for following along on the 3 pulp car project. Your comments and suggestions were appreciated and helpful. The next car will be all done with Pan Pastels and Testors Dull Cote

TomO

 

[TLOC]

The FB friend has approved the 3 pulp cars and I will add the slash to the decks tonight or tomorrow morning.

The next project is the 1st locomotive I will attempt to weather. It is a Athearn Genesis MP15AC I will strip off the CP lettering and numbers. Add my free lance Railroad name but hold off on adding the ditchlights. Seems they are on back order.

A Scale Sound System speaker with a ESU decoder has been added this week. Still a rough runner but while the body is drying I will disassemble the complete drive train on this guy and fix it. I thought by just cleaning out the old lube would fix it but nope no dice. There is a delay in starting up with then a lurch going either forward or backward and no flywheel drift. I need the flywheel drift as I operate with almost full drift or rather momentum!

Dirtying this guy up should be interesting. The plan is a medium weathering but with the start of some light streaking rust. I am looking for a prototype MP15AC that matches my thoughts. That is the balance of tonight’s time, searching.

Join me, as I continue my journey into the unknown world of weathering model trains. I can tell you, each project is different as no one method seems to be satisfying

TomO

 

[TLOC]

Well, I looked at the thread title. Locomotives don’t fit.

I will move this locomotive project to its own thread

TomO

 

[CambriaArea51]

Dirtying this guy up should be interesting. The plan is a medium weathering but with the start of some light streaking rust. I am looking for a prototype MP15AC that matches my thoughts. That is the balance of tonight’s time, searching.

The few I've seen they're on the clean side. Shot runs and slow speeds only dirty the trucks it seems.

 

[TLOC]

The few I've seen they're on the clean side. Shot runs and slow speeds only dirty the trucks it seems.

Thanks Tom. I have now looked at hundreds of pictures at 3 sites. These suckers were clean.

I did start a Continous weathering thread for locomotives and posted some of the dirtiest I could find there.

TomO

 

[TLOC]

Waiting on the FB friend’s approval after adding the slash to the decks of the pulp cars

TomO

 

[TLOC]

Finished with pulp cars for a while. We have gondolas!

I finished up 2 duplicate numbered CN’s 63’ mill gons from Walthers. This was my great buy that I was so proud of that I didn’t buy the numbers of cars I have. It was very deflating when I figured out was wrong. Anyway, they are lightly weathered and on the layout.

As I finished the Testors dull cote the mail delivery arrived with 2 more. A CN with a number I don’t have and a WC gondola, also the Walthers 63’ mill gondola with drop down ends. They are on the turntable after getting a light base coat of Tamiya Hull Red

Funny thing. I cannot find these in the Walthers online catalog including when I look for retired pieces. The box says it’s Walthers RTR series. The all are in need of 36” steel wheels and the Kadee #148 whisker coupler I use.

Tomorrow for that exchange.

A FB friend asked if I would do the dents and dings these cars normally have. The prototype pictures I am working from do not have the big bulges and dents I see so commonly done in You Tube videos. I did start experimenting though with a soldering iopron on one side of an old Athearn BB. Tomorrow I will use the heat gun on low and try that as a comparison


TomO

 

[gunslinger]

well Tom don,t feel to bad i live not to far from the UP line that runs through Salina,Ks,Abilene and on over to Topeka east and for 3 months there was a string of new CHTT 50ft trinity gons on a storage track west of us and then i got a wild hair and decided to redecorate a walthers mainline railgon to CHTT and when i went to take some photos they were gone and through blind luck i found a photo of a CHTT gon on the internet so was able to get close to the correct car number and reporting marks i have no idea why but lately i have been heavy on CHTT equip and redone several cars my next car is a steel coil car in oxide red.....

 

[gunslinger]

your gons look great nice work