Fertilizer Hopper Build - Weathering

As much as I preach less is more when it comes to weathering, I always pile it on thick. This car was no exception. Though most of my equipment will fall in the late 70's to early 80's, and the build date on this car is '77 it is showing some serious age already... Starting with some washes made from cheap craft store paint, it got a fade with Vanilla. Next a very light wash of some Licorice on the sides, heavier on the ends and bottom. The rust streaks were over done with Burnt Sienna oil paint, a tiny dollop placed at each roof walk support and then drawn away with a clean brush soaked in paint thinner.

Fertilizer Hopper Build - Decals

Spent another evening on this, tonight the decals got applied. The Oddballs set I used was pretty decent. Not on the level of Microscale, but close. The package said "screen printed" but I always thought Oddballs were done on an Alps like printer? Either way they are crisp and clear. They are also very thin, which makes them pretty much melt into the paint but also makes them super fragile. I messed a couple of them up but was able to salvage them to be passable. Next up will be some real light weathering to add a couple years of age, and I guess I should try and track down some Microscale COTS decals.

Fertilizer Hopper Build Update

Over the past few nights I've been throwing down some ModelMaster Light Gray paint. First on the top and sides, the next night the bottom and ends, and tonight a 2nd light coat on the top, ends, and sides to hit any areas that got missed. The factory gray paint was a little dark for my liking, and this is a little light, but it'll do I guess. If nothing else it's a nice faded gray that will take a little light weathering well.

Fertilizer Hopper Build

I got a couple new things in the mail over the last week or two, meaning I have all the components for a small project. The fertilizer plant on the River Valley Central will receive dry products by rail and ship out local orders by truck. I picked up an MTL ACF hopper wearing Souther Pacific and some Oddballs decals to make a hopper that's not something you can just go buy. Not that there's anything wrong with RTR, but sometimes it's fun to roll your own.

This will hopefully be a quick and easy build, though it got off to a bit of a rough start. Originally the plan was to get any gray MTL ACF hopper, wipe the letters off, decal, weather just a tiny bit, done. I don' t know what's changed since last time I renumbered an MTL car but the pad printing was not coming off without taking the rest of the paint too. Matter of fact, the gray paint wiped off almost instantly when the rubbing alcohol touched it and the black letters didn't budge. Not huge, but I guess I'm not going to decal this thing tonight. Instead the whole thing took a soak in alcohol for about an hour or so. The alcohol stripped that thing naked. I mean totally bare, with only a slight touch from a cheap tooth brush to scrub the end frames a bit. That's all for tonight though, repaint will have to happen another night.