A few more shots of the wood cars

Coming along nicely, Marc.

Coming along nicely, Marc.

Brush, or Airbrush?

I like it!  I'll have to

I like it!  I'll have to check into that chipping medium.  I don't have any wood box cars, but it should work on "steel" as well.

Maybe a little more fading on what red shows, to blend it all together.

Nice work.

Mike.

Airbrush

Hi Prof,

I used an airbrush (Neo Iwata TRN1) for the primer, chipping medium and boxcar red.  I used brushes for the preshading work on the wood.  To do the chipping I used a variety of brushes but mostly a small microbrush to get into the nooks and crannies of the car.  

Marc Simpson

Colored and Watercolor Pencils

Mark,

Nice work!

I just finished a similar car and found that colored pencils and watercolor pencils can really add a lot to this effect, particularly with wood discoloration. It also highlights different boards, Give it a try, you won't be disappointed!

pencil weathering

@Sean; the pencil weathering was one of the ideas I was thinking about to tone down the chipped paint on the one car.  Seeing your results makes me think this is definitely something I'm going to try out.  How do you seal the work once you are satisfied with the look of it?

Marc Simpson

Seal

Rustoleum Dead Flat is my go to, but Dullcote is good too. What I like is the control you have with pencils to get individual boards which weather differently based on how they were milled, tree species, repairs, etc...

Interesting Techniques

Fascinating techniques. Chipped paint like this opens a whole new weathering dimension. The caution is don't overdue it for an operating railroad.

For pre-1960's modeling there was no massive "grafitti" on car sides but there can be neglect shown particularly for non-revenue producing equipment.  For class 1 railroads prior to the mid-1950's equipment that actively generated revenue would need only minor paint chip weathering not the massive paint chipping on the OP examples. 

I would think any shipper would reject a car placed for loading looking so badly weathered. If the shipper didn't reject the car it would not get through the first interchange inspection.

Non-railroad owned structures by the right of way could really use these techniques. 

Not necessarily...

A lot of postwar equipment was in rough shape and barely hanging on after the war and maintenance neglect. Then again, most of this worn out equipment was eliminated by the early 1950s to make way for new cars. Mine is at the very end of revenue service in 1950 and was never repaired again. 95% of the rest of this series were destroyed. The Great Northern burned a lot of their wood cars and reused the metal components and frame to build new wood cars in the mid-1950s. Never say never!

Rubber cement

Rubber cement also works to simulate chipped paint. It worked okay for my one caboose and a two-story wood building I scratch built:

work service cars

@Ken, the two heavily weathered cars will be work service cars.  CN had a ton of worn out heavily weathered single sheath cars in work service well into the late 1980's.  I also have two 40 foot single sheath cars that will be in grain service (a few lasted until 1983 in grain service) so they will have more subtle weathering applied.

Marc Simpson

grain cars

CN used the remaining cars from their massive fleet of 1929 built 40 foot single sheath boxcars in regular grain service until 1983, with other cars surviving in work service until the late 1980's and possibly into the 1990's. 

Since I model 1981-83 with significant grain boxcar traffic to the port in Churchill Manitoba, I need a few of these cars intermixed with my 40' steel boxcar fleet just to provide some variety.  These two cars will see service hauling grain on my layout.  Since they are still in active service they won't be nearly as weatherbeaten as the 36 foot single sheath cars in work service.  I'll also have a few of these 40' cars in work service as well, and they will be far more beaten up.  

Marc Simpson 

Hairspray as alternative

Marc,

I've used both the Vallejo chipping medium and cheap hairspray for chipping. Both work equally well, and have different characteristics in terms of how you can chip the paint. If you really want to get fancy you can do multilayer chipping by sealing each layer of chipping with a clear coat.

This roof is an example of multilayer chipping. I think I used hairspray.

wood fleet

3 of the 4 cars are ready for service, just need to add air hoses and cut levers along with more weathering.  The 4th car is getting more work to blend the chipping better so it isn't as stark.  Stay  tuned for that one.  Eventually.

Marc Simpson     

Marc Simpson

4th Fowler boxcar

4th car is getting decalled now.  I have toned down the chipped paint with washes of black, grey and boxcar red to blend the colours a bit better to make it less stark.  I also painted some individual boards to give more variety in the colouration.  

Decals are a combination of CDS dry transfers, Black Cat Decals, Sean Steele decals and some custom decals I had done by Bill Brillinger.  I used the dry transfers to give the weathered "Canadian National" lettering.  After I applied the dry transfer somewhat sloppily I rubbed off parts of the transfer to give a weathered lettering appearance.  So far I'm happy with how this car has turned out.  I still need to put the ladder I knocked off back on the right side of the car.  

Marc Simpson

I also used graphite and

Your single-sheathed cars look terrific, Marc. It's always surprising how many layers of treatment, some subtle and some not, it  can take to produce a good-looking effect of a highly weathered car.  

I also used graphite and colored pencil, both early on to represent bare wood and as a final step after washes to represent patches and flakes of original paint remaining. 

Re: Revenue service:  The NP

Re: Revenue service:  The NP boxcar in my previous post is based on a car relegated by the NP to hide loading only for the last several years of its life. It was maintained to standard for interchange service, but only just barely.   

A frugal operation, the NP took extraordinary care of their wood-sheathed boxcars, even after a few decades of their service life was expended. But a change of management with a merger mindset in the late 1960s led to different priorities, and older equipment was kept around only as long as a major maintenance investment wasn't required.  The model above depicts NP 13325 in its final months of service, before retirement in 1969. 

There's a well-known photo by Matt Herson of this car in service in Butte, Montana in Todd Sullivan's NP Color Guide.

further progress

The second 36' Fowler boxcar is at the point that I'm satisfied with it.  Multiple washes have accomplished what I wanted them to.  I also applied some black washes to one of the 1929 40' single sheath cars, and I like how it looks.  Some dullcote and a few more washes and it will  look like an ancient car hauling one of its last loads, just like the prototype was in the early 1980's.

Marc Simpson 

Weathering Wood Boxcar

This is just outstanding!  I love your technique!   All The Best!

Did't the same sort of weathering

Excuse my English, my Dutch is much better.

I did't the same sort of weathering with a proto car.
 

 

The original.

 


The result. Problems for my where that i can't buy new decals easy here in the Netherlands. Buying them oversea wil make is to expensive.So i have to paint around the lettering or clean it directly after painting over it. Al was done with a paintbrush.  JohnT

How to post pics

Dear John T,

Would love to see your images, but MRH Forum does not allow posting from within a Google Images account.
Suggest reviewing  https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/help/how-to-post-an-image 
and editing your post?

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

A superb job there,

A superb job there, JohnT.

Have you created any posts or blogs of your work?

Deem,

My layout: https://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/31151?page=27

weathering

John T

Great job of weathering your cattle car. I can't believe the time it must have taken to work around all that weathering. I would think someone over here would be able to buy and ship you decals at a reasonable price. Are all yopur parts expensive to get?

Keep up the good work.

Bing