The finished unplanned project!

My unintended and unplanned freight car weathering project is finally finished. I will let the pictures taken on my USA switching layout speak for themselves! Lets just say I am pleased!

A change of plan!

In the unplanned weathering of the freight car I had sprayed the underside of the body grey. Having researched actual freight cars further I think it is probably better in yellow so it got resprayed!

Then to match the rest of the weathering on the body of the freight car my method of brown dilute paint washes was applied.

 It still needs more weathering but it is showing promising signs unless I change my plans again!

This freight car project has ballooned!

This freight car project has ballooned which is an excuse to include this picture from my early morning bike ride before it got to hot of the first hot air balloon that I have seen this year.

The freight car project has taken on a life of its own! From the simple planned repair of a coupling to the unplanned (that is not unusual for me as Mrs. Woody will vouch) complete weathering of the freight car!

This is how the body looked in bright yellow.

Using a wide soft brush I just streaked dilute brown paint over the body sides.

Luckily with the hot weather the paint soon dried so it was possible to apply a number of coats. This is what it looked like after four coats. 

I'm pleased with that! Next the underside!

Wagon coupling repair descends into something else!

It was going to be a quick put the coupler back and glue the retaining plate in place on one of the wagons off my USA switching layout. As part of that repair I had to remove the bogie and wheels which was held in place with a push in pin.

With the bogie removed this was the descent into something else! I decided to clean the wheels.

At that point I thought that it might be interesting to try weathering the wheels and bogies. So off came the other bogie and the wheels were removed.

The faces of the wheels were painted in a earth brown colour which is a good base for rust coloured weathering powders. The bogies were painted with the earth brown around areas that would rust and the rest of the bogies were coated in a grey weathering powder followed by some rust powder.

With all that done everything was matt varnished. 

The previous black plastic sheen to the bogies and wheels had gone and they looked a lot more realistic.

Unfortunately I now need to waether the rest of the wagon to harmonise with the running gear!