Models and Kitbashes by NightOwlModeler: Modeling MoPac "Eagle River" Pullman 6-6-4 (Part 3)

In the last post, MoPac "Eagle River" 6-6-4 (Part 2), I finished off the trim molding and got up to masking the car for witness coat.

Status of the "Eagle River" as I'm starting Part 3 with all the trim molding in place.

This post is all about painting... or so I hope!

Color-Sanding the Witness

Like with all good investigations, before the painting... It's best to color-sand the witness!

Fortunately, I found that the Tamyia Glue had slightly damaged a number of places along the edge of the trim molding when I applied it. Unfortunately, I didn't notice the extent of it until after I sprayed the car with the 'witness coat' of paint, which is always good to do as a primer, get the body the same light color, where you can see shadows and anything weird in the surface finish of the model before proceeding farther.

Notice the crazing along the edges of the trim molding in this photo from Part 2...

This was expected, but I didn't realize I had not caught all of it. The plastic welding process tends to lead to a bit of 'crazing' of the smooth plastic surfaces of the base part, and also there's some bleed-out of the plastic from the trim strips being welded, usually forming a very small bead of plastic along the strip being welded. Usually this can be cleaned up with a knife or a couple passes with sand paper.

Right side of 'Eagle River' witness coated in my custom-mixed 'Eagle Gray' (which is wrong).

On this 6-6-4 with the trim molding, these areas are in some rather tight and specific areas that I don't want to hit with the sand paper or pads. Thus I'm mostly using only the edge of the sanding pads, working at a slight angle to avoid hitting the trim molding on the opposite sides of the window or body panel, under the pad's area. This also seems to help as the pad naturally will spring and lay into the areas needing the work, and leaving the larger open spaces of the carside between the molding untouched. I did make some basic light color sanding passes in those areas to polish them, but that took less than 5 minutes. Most of the time was spent working right against the trim molding.

Color-sanding with 3200, 8000, and 12000 grit sanding pads from Hobby Lobby.

I use water with my color sanding, just to keep the dust down and make it easier to get the surface back to a 'polished' surface. I always keep a paper towel handy to wipe away the wet sanded powder.

This spot was a drip of liquid glue that hit the car when I was working on the trim molding.

In two spots, there was damage from where a drop of Tamyia liquid glue landed on the side of the car. This one looks bad, but is actually already sanded down smooth in the paint.

And a second place where I dripped onto the carside. Thankfully both were easy fixes with sanding and polishing.

This damage is also already cleaned up and sanded down. The lighting of these two photos don't pick up the look of the sanded paint finish, which to the natural eye is much more visible. However, in both cases the area is completely smooth to the touch and doesn't even feel rough at all.

Back to Painting...

Color sanding complete and roof witness coat on.

I mixed a very light gray roof color, which I will have to reshoot again with a darkened color for the 'MP Gray'.

Reshooting the Mixed "Eagle Gray"

Left side masked for blue color paint. In this shot the sanding to fix the side damage is more visible.

I masked off the custom mixed 'Eagle Gray' and shot my blue color, which was matched to the Walthers MoPac Express Boxcar.

Right side masked for blue color paint.

Two strips of Tamyia tape cover the windows and the molding, and another strip covers the lower body and skirts, with additional strips to cover the extra lower bits.

Sad Times with Blues

Color mismatches... sigh

Ok, I didn't get the 'Eagle Gray' right... needs more yellow/tan I think. But at least the blue matches the Walthers model. I even did a Santa Fe Blue drop against the blue ends of the boxcar, dead on match. It's almost like Walthers painted their MoPac cars with Santa Fe Blue.... huh...

Right side of the car with Santa Fe Blue.

The color matched to the Walthers MoPac Express Boxcar's Santa Fe Blue (which I know is wrong now!) applied to the model.

Left side of the car with Santa Fe Blue.

At this point I was still a bit concerned that the custom gray (cream) color for the carside and skirts was too light and not 'tan enough, and the Santa Fe Blue was too 'saturated' (i.e. too much color richness) and not enough gray in it for the color pallet that I believe the MoPac was going for.

In Closing... For Now...

Left side with the wrong colors.

As I know the 'Eagle Gray' is wrong, the light gray on the roof is also way too light, so I'll be needing to repaint that again too.

Right side with the wrong colors.

Of course it was about this time that I talked with a friend and found out that TruColor makes the various correct 'MP Eagle' colors... sigh... ok... so I get to wait a week or so for those to show up now.

TruColor's TCP-122 vs TCP-020 according to their website color chips.

Sigh... well, that's annoying!

So that's where I'm at for now with this project. I expect to reshoot the new TruColor MoPac 'Eagle Gray' for the carsides over the whole carsides. That will also act as a primer to tone down the 'too saturated' Santa Fe Blue, in anticipation of the new gray-er MP 'Eagle Blue' color from TruColor.

Jason Hill

I've done a number of Walthers 6-6-4 sleepers, as well as other arrangements of their cars. Here's the two recent ones that I've been working on...

Santa Fe's 6-6-4 "Surprise Valley" in Shadowline scheme