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I have finally finished a long awaited project and I wanted to show it off. I did not make it totally exact to the prototype but tried my best. Still the cab and the front handrails are incorrect but close enough.
This unit was a HO Athearn BB Union Pacific that I stripped down and repainted. It is the first BNSF unit I have ever done and probably the last. The decals are not the easiest to do. I super detailed it with Details West items and once the decoder is installed it will have Tsunami Sound with working ditchlights. I'd say not bad for a blue box Athearn.
Funny you should ask. I first started with my crazy greenish-yellow color spayed on and then I used white like I was fading that. Last came the use of chalks. I brought in the orange color with using orange chalk followed with some browns and blacks for weathering purposes. I think it still needs some more orange color if you ask me. I'll probably hit it one more time.
what i like about it that it is just sun bleached
but still in good shape. Seems like everybody
wants to make there loco look it was parked next
to the titanic..rusted and rotted
I'd have to do the new front handrails too and paint the nose under the striping green. Some dash-9 have that part green and some have it orange. Since I started painted the unit prior to deciding which exact unit I was doing, I pick the wrong color. Still I don't see it as a big deal unless I try to go exact.
I started with my Athearn Blue Box Union Pacific Dash-9, and pulled everything off of it. I then stripped the paint by soaking it in Scalecoat II paint remover. I then ordered a new cab and window set along with handrails from Athearn. I got the cab with the number boards above the front windows since the UP one had them on the nose.
For painting, I got the photo (the one that I posted first) and started mix-matching the paint to come close to what the photo looked like. I ended up using BN Green and UP Yellow and Reefer White. Once I airbrushed that color onto the engine, I masked off the unit and applied the BNSF Green. The next step was the decals. Those took some time but it wasn't too bad to apply. Prior to this point I wasn't going to model the actual #4433 so I didn't care too much of what I was doing.
I then purchased all the parts for doing a super detail job and started applying. Right about then I realized after collecting more photos that my faded color was way off--too green. I then taped off the area once again and airbrushed some white. I then took it and applied some orange chalk to bring back a little bit of leftover orange look.
I then finish all the parts and details and then airbrushed the dirt look on the bottom with my airbrush along with the top. I also used some dark chalks to weather it up a bit.
I'm sure I could have saved myself some time if I knew right from the start what prototype I was going to do, get all the photos and then start the painting process. That would have made it a lot easier.
what i like about it that it is just sun bleached
but still in good shape. Seems like everybody
wants to make there loco look it was parked next
to the titanic..rusted and rotted
Same here. Not everything on an actual railroad is gonna require a tetanus shot just for looking at it. I've noticed locos are usually treated better than freight cars.
how did you do it???
