Saturday, June 20, 2015

IHC GTW 50' Boxcar - Part 2

Some progress today as I restored the blue paint layer.

The first time was masking alll the white lettering on the car to preserve it. I tried, as much as possible, to keep the masking real close to the lettering to minimize the ghosting effect.




Next step was priming the model with white to make sure paint would adhere correctly. In retrospect, I feel I should have skipped that step for this particular model.



The issue with white primer is the paint build up against the masking tape. I was perfectly aware it would happen but not that much. Worst, the white layer is visible on the demarcation line.


Well, let's see what it looks like when seen closely. Not great isn't it? That will need some touch up.


After touching up the demarcations lines, the result was far better, but still, the paint build up make it looks like a bad decal job. Under normal condtion, it should be acceptable.


Well, when the touch up was done, I misted a white wash to fade and lighten the blue color. The result is far to be perfect since the blue ain't GTW blue, but I think it should be OK when completely weathered.


I will probably lighten up the color a little bit with oil paint during weathering. Also, I decided to paint the roof aluminium. Since the car isn't very prototypical, I feel having another color will help to give more credibility to the model. Also, the pale colors make object looks bigger. This particular boxcar is so small I'll do everything I can to hide its inherent defects. I'm using this particular car as source of inspiration.

Last detail. Wheels and trucks were painted with a random dark brown mix and then received a coat of weathering powder.

2 comments:

  1. GTW blue cars do a pretty significant fade and lighten over time from the original colour, so a lot can probably be blended together with an overall fade/weathering coat.

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    1. Chris, the only issue is the overspray along the lettring masking tape. The pain thickness there gathered the fading coat even if I made sure it was as dry as possible when reaching the model. Well, lesson learned I guess.

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