Researching and starting the project

Since I have no background on the history of the DT&I, I turned to the Facebook group "Freight Car Enthusiast" and the Groups.io "Modern Freight Car List". These two groups have a huge group of individuals with a wealth of knowledge about just about any prototype car in the past 50 years! Through these groups, I was able to figure out the road number to model, and create a realistic background story about how a DT&I boxcar could find it's way to a branchline in Seattle, WA in the mid to late 70's. With that information in mind, I tackled the project. First was a coat of Badger Airbrush Stynylrez Primer. This stuff is great, and it is a water based formula. Much better than the rattle can stuff I had been using.

After priming, I base coated everything with some old Polly Scale Boxcar Red and added Archer Weld decals. In retrospect, I should have added the weld decals before I primed or added the base red layer.

As you can see in the photo, I did some base layer chipping with rust, but as the model has progressed, this chipping has become less and less useful.

For some reason, I always like to start with the roof. 

With the roof near the 90% complete mark, I started on the sides. The last photo is the most current update. I'm slowly removing weathering that I applied as some of my washes where too thick of paint to wash ratio.

Removing more weathering. Thoughts?

Looks good

Looks good to me.  I'm assuming you'll add a little weathering once you apply the decals. Right now, it looks close to the prototype.  Nice job,

any chance you's apply a little "BB" as grafitti as homage to the builder even though there's no graffiti on the prototype?

Good Idea, have to think about it

Humm. I hadn't thought about something along the lines of that. I do model the late 70's so not much grafitti as modern stuff, but I might be able to manage a chalk mark or two with BB. 

Removing weathering

I think that it looks great right now. I remove a lot of weathering too and find it essential to the overall final look. Well, that's what I tell myself at least! Honestly, I find erasing/eradicating adds a realism and a randomness that is hard to achieve just from initial application.

 Very nice work! 

A little more refinement

In studying the photos, I think I need to refine the panel lines a little bit more. I made the mistake of not applying the weld decals until after the primer and 1st layer of paint was on. Next time, remember to do before priming! That little mistake is coming back to bite me. As I remove the grime on the panel lines, if I'm not to careful I'm also removing the top coat of red on the weld lines. Can't see that in the photos, but up close on the model, I can see patches of unpainted weld lines. 

The other trick is to start and replicate this mess on the other side... And then add some weathering on the black ends. That should be interesting as I have no reference photos.

Getting back to this project

I posted a few photos on the Oct What's on your workbench thread, but I thought I should formally update this thread.

After searching thru the piles of decals I got, I think I finally found what I need to decal this car. 

Prototype photo:

Laying out decals;

Everything was going good one side until I got the far left end (A end) of this side of the car. I couldn't find a set of white lettering of the DTI so I substituted black with the intention of going back over with white paint as part of the next step of the weathering process. It didn't look bad as evidenced by this photo.

Then disaster struck when I went to clear coat the model. I found lots of decal silvering, and the white strip and the black DTI turned into a inky glob of nothing...

So, I decided to abandon that side and focus on the otherside, improving the silvering. This side turned out better (camera not 100% focused, need to take another side shot).

Up close

Clearly a lot better than the otherside, so back I went to see if I could recover some of the silvering. I applied a couple light washes of grimy black on the carside and it seemed to help.

The silvering is still visible, but it is much less. More to come still as the prototype has some nice patches of new paint. I'm going to use that idea of patches to patch the screwed up area. 

The goal is to have this boxcar done by the end of the month. Time will tell...

I like it.

It’s looking good Craig.

@Greg

A few more layer of washes plus some repaint patches

Looks good

it has come together well Craig. 

Yes, I agree