[Krieglok]

I had a fellow from the OGR forum ask me about painting a boxcar for the Raritan River Railroad.

Most people may know the modern 50’ cars they owned toward the inclusion of the RR into Conrail. They were large, red with white lettering.

The fellow wanted an older version of a 40’ boxcar. At least one did exist on their property. I don’t know if it ever saw service or not, but the RR 100 was used as a storage shed. I believe it has been restored or replicated. Not much history about the real car.

Anyway, I found a HO Atlas car, painted for the RR. It is a light boxcar red with black ends and roof.

The logo and data were available as a set from Fusion Scale Graphics. The spelled out name, “ Raritan River” is not on the decal sheet, unfortunately. I purchased a couple alphabet sets in the correct font from K4 decals

I have done two test cars, a scale version and a O-27 version. I have to tweak the colors a bit and straighten the painted stripe but the test cars are working out okay, so far…

Tom

 

[Norton]

Looking good Tom. You must have a lot of patience. Letter by letter decaling is not for the faint of heart.

Pete

 

[Lehigh74]

In the last shot, what is the gloss around the decals? Something to make the decals set better?

 

[Krieglok]

Looking good Tom. You must have a lot of patience. Letter by letter decaling is not for the faint of heart.

Pete

Thanks Pete. I goes pretty quickly actually. Once the decal it slightly set, it is manuvered into position and stays put…

In the last shot, what is the gloss around the decals? Something to make the decals set better?

The cars still have some Microsoft 2 decal softener that hasn’t dried yet. I give them a few coats before the get any clear coat…

Tom

 

[seayakbill]

Fantastic modeling Tom, you certainly are skilled with painting & decaling.

Bill

 

[gunrunnerjohn]

Those decals look great, the one time I tried to put letter by letter decals on it looked like a first grade construction project!

 

[Big Jim]

Tom,
I noticed that you need to burnish the tape down not only along the tape edges, but, everywhere there is a seam in order to keep the paint from getting underneath the tape and keep touch-up to a minimum.

 

[Krieglok]

Tom,
I noticed that you need to burnish the tape down not only along the tape edges, but, everywhere there is a seam in order to keep the paint from getting underneath the tape and keep touch-up to a minimum.

Actually I did, but the second row of tape had a couple leaks. Some of the details were problematic, when working around them I am going to touch it up before clear coating.

Basically, I need to work on my striping skills. I did these two cars to see where I screw up and then address it on the next car…

Tom

 

[Big Jim]

When dealing with white, I always paint the white first. If I need to tape it off, as in making a stripe, I will apply the tape (Drafting tape, yellow Frog tape or Tamiya masking tape are low stick types), then paint the edges and seams white again before painting the darker color. That helps to keep the other color from bleeding underneath. But, doing a good job of burnishing the edges and seams is most important. Use a good fid or toothpick.

 

[laz57]

Great work TOM!! Are the decals water transfer?

 

[Krieglok]

When dealing with white, I always paint the white first. If I need to tape it off, as in making a stripe, I will apply the tape (Drafting tape, yellow Frog tape or Tamiya masking tape are low stick types), then paint the edges and seams white again before painting the darker color. That helps to keep the other color from bleeding underneath. But, doing a good job of burnishing the edges and seams is most important. Use a good fid or toothpick.

Thanks Jim. I will give that method a try. I use Tamiya tape for the lines and blue tape to cover the rest of the model…

Great work TOM!! Are the decals water transfer?

Thank you Laz! The decals are water transfers. Just working out some bugs with the paint work…

Tom