Weathered MMA Walthers Centerbeam Flatcars

 A few weeks/months ago, I hinted to the fact I was watching a lot of military modelling tutorials to improve my weathering skills. Martin Kovac also known as Night Shift on YouTube as provided a lot of inspiration about color modulation, washes and chipping. Certainly, these techniques take time and are for patient people, but they provide far superior results. I won't explain all the techniques, but simply share a few observations that may help you and which were a game changer for me. Don't forger these cars will probably receive some more touch ups when I'll add loads some day. But let me asses the model.

Walthers centerbeam flatcars have been on the market since the 1990s and have been a staple on many layout. They are sturdy and affordable and represent a common prototype... but they are outdated. Like many old Walthers cars, the details are crude and bulky, Many steel shapes aren't correctly designed due to molding process limitation. Worst, the newest batches are poorly glued together. As I was working on them, they started to fall apart. I have one from 1999-2000 that is perfectl assembled, but not the newer ones. I would also add that many parts are warped. Given these limitations and the fact a few better models are available, I can't  recommend these cars. The are good to build a large fleet or if you want that specific prototype, but otherwise consider other brands or a serious rebuild. With some hindsight, I should have replaced a few grabirons with wire ones. However, you'll notice I did add brass handrails at car ends and COTS on styrene panels as commonly found on prototypes.

I started with Canadian Pacific green cars and redecalled them later in the process with Highball Graphics  MMA patching decals which are a perfect fit for the prototype.

The first major step was to bleach the paint by using several mists of thinned down white. MMA flatcars are extremely chalky. As pointed out by Martin Kovac, it's better to overdo that step and make it garish to some extent because washes and other weathering techniques will considerably obscure it. He was right. On some car, I had to spray another coat later because it became to dark.

Another military technique was pin wash. It means you apply the wash where you want it. Then, after most solvent is evaporated but paint is not hardened, you use a brush with very little solvent on it and stipple the effect to smooth it and remove every unrealistic shadows. In model railroading, we often add a wash all over the model and wish for the best... military guys don't play games and they work the effect as it should. It really improved the realism on the model and made many details, including the panels, to pop out without looking clownish. 

Chipping was the last big technique I used. It's about rust spots. Using a very fine brush, I painted the chips individually starting with a rust color. Then, with another fine brush, I added a second coat of very dark brown over it to simulate dark rust on steel. I made sure some of the fresh rust color was still visible. Then I dabbed some burnt umber oil paint over the paint chips and, just like the previous washes, worked it over to create streaking effects on the paint. Later, with a sponge, I added much smaller chipping effect made of dark brown paint. They are much smaller and subtle, but add a lot of texture without overwhelming the appearance. The cars aren't rust buckets.

Finally, pastel was used to add dirt and grime on the floor panels just like in real life. It blended together several coarser weathering techniques in a convincing way, creating a darker background to make cleaner ribs pop out.

What I will have to explore later on other cars will be dirt and mud. I barely explored that subject, but should pay more attention to it in the future.