Thursday, June 16, 2022

ATSF 129782 - Bx38 - Weathering with Pencils & Acrylics


IMRC's WWII Emergency Boxcar lettered for Santa Fe Bx38 class.

To add some variety to freight car fleet on my Jawbone Branch layout, I picked up this IMRC boxcar about 5 years back.  These cars are really cool as they add a unique look to any freight train with the composite doors.  These cars are also rather tall for composite cars at 10'6" IH, which is the same as the post-war steel cars and some of the 1937 AAR cars.

Prototype Weathering Reference


ATSF 213481, a Bx12 class boxcar as an example of weathering on Santa Fe boxcars, circa 1957. Tim Logan collection

While I don't have a prototype photo for the War Emergency car, and I don't have a resin Bx12 class car, which are really cool with the raised roofs.  Instead in this post I'll be experimenting with my acrylic weathering and Prisma Pencil weathering on.

Starting Point


Unweathered IMRC WWII Emergency Boxcar design, ATSF 129782, Bx38.

All the cars on my layout get at least a bit of weathering, so this car which is about 5-8 years old during my 1949-1954 era layout, so would be starting to show some weathering.

Weathering Process


Let's first look at the weathering materials that I will be using.

PrismaColor pencil set, Michael's art supply had single pencils as well.

Apple Barrel acrylic 'craft' paints from Walmart.

Applying Weathering to the Model


I started with some light pencil experimenting on the Bx38.  Fairly soon, I wanted to apply the general color adjustment with the acrylic paint.  I used Pavement and choice of a couple of the medium-dark brown to tone down the paint on the car generally.  Territorial Beige is used to apply the 'dust' effects along the lower part of the car.

Several passes with brown pencils and some boards picked out for gray pencils to show aged boards.  The Apple Barrel paint helped give a bit of extra 'tooth' for the pencils to adhere to the model.






Completed pencil only weathering experiment.  I think it's a little too contrasty, so I knock down the colors a bit with some Apple Barrel acrylic wash.


Trucks weathered with acrylic paint and Pavement on the wheel faces.



Acrylic weathering finished.  Time for a little more pencil work.


I decided to only apply the extra pencil work to the right side of the car.  The left side at this point stopped with the 1st acrylic overcoat.



Underframe weathered with dirty brown-pavement color.


At this point I sealed the pencil work with a coat of Dullcote.  I may do another very thin wash to blend the colors again slightly.

Roof Weathering (Edit)


I did some dabbling weathering on the roof with applications of Dark Gray, Pavement, some selected brown/rust colors and a few applications of Golden Sunset AppleBarrel acrylic, which was a mistake!

ATSF 129782 with overboard roof weathering

I did a final over-wash of Pavement to tone down the dabs of Golden Sunset, which was too bright. 

Black roof weathered

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out now that the Golden Sunset yellow is toned down.

In Closing


Right side of ATSF 129782 in 'soft' cloudy NV evening light

Finishing touches include patching out the tare date and last 3-digits of the LD LMT and LT WT.  New last 3-digits of the weights and tare station and date.  I decided to set this car up as an Santa Fe Bakersfield reweighed car from August, 1949.  

Left side of ATSF 129782 in 'soft' cloudy NV evening light

Chalk marks with the white and light gray pencils are also applied along the lower sides of the car.

IMRC's WWII Emergency Boxcar lettered for Santa Fe Bx38 class in natural summer NV sunlight.

I'm looking forward to getting the LED lighting over the Jawbone Branch finished, as it will provide better lighting for photographing the weathering on these cars.

Jason Hill

Related Articles:


Weathering NP 11661 - Rapido Double-Sheath Boxcar - with Acrylics and Prisma Pencils


SP 65ft Mill Gondolas - Examples of Athearn 65ft Mill Gondolas including weathering tips.

Open Loads (Part 1) - Building Steel Loads - Also showing weathering on gondolas

SP Prewar Boxcars (Part 1) B-50-18,19,20,21,23 Classes - History and Modeling with Weathering

SP Jawbone Branch (Part 4) - Freight Car Roster - Various cars planned for my layout.

4 comments:

  1. Well done Sir and I'm glad my Bx-12 image was of some help with your project. I have several to start on including several Bx's and War Emergency ATSF 40 & 50' cars.. I plan to try a few of your ideas when they get weathered.
    Tim Logan

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  2. As a side note: It would seem, the redish tint prevailed like in that photo of an aged Santa Fe Mineral Brown into the later 50's. They were more brownish then red earlier especially in the 1940's - early 50's. Most Bx's had an anti-skid mineral textured black roof w/black ends. Later re-paints were for the most part all mineral brown ends & roofs.

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    Replies
    1. I should also say, the photo outside with the white background is auto-color corrected and stacked, but that makes the model look much more red than it actually appears indoors on the layout.

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  3. Thanks for the input! I agree the Santa Fe cars were darker brown with less red than the SP cars of the same era. I'm enjoying expanding my fleet a bit with other unique car bodies and styles. Several photos of the Jawbone show ATSF all-steel cars, so I'll be building a couple of those. One should be a post-war car based on the slogan/maps, but I don't think I'm going to go out of my way to get one of the Kadee cars. As I already have several Bx-27 cars from Branchline, so I'll probably use them.

    ReplyDelete

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