Let us begin with a model of the ICC Class 103 10,000 gallon tank car in UTLX livery by Tichy Train Group.
Scale: HO
60″ DOME 10,000 GALLON ICC CLASS 103 TANK CAR
ERA 1918 TO 1955
INJECTION MOLDED STYRENE KIT.
I failed to capture the build process in photos. It came together alright; some imperfections are evident. I learned a lot about handling styrene-molded grabirons. There are no cut levers yet. I am launching with this project with the aim to relearn airbrushing, and we will see that the paint job looks pretty good even if it is far from perfect.
Priming
By chance I happened to have a sandy brown primer, Vallejo 614.
Note the cheapo extruded foam support. It has styrene support stands from a Tichy box car kit that will be the subject of a different post.
I tried to layer the paint with a grayer brown before black (Vallejo 71.131), but the black top layer naturally overtook the layering and the subtlety was lost – a total beginner mistake. A future post will show the much better results from preshading a box car.
The later layers came a little heavy, which left a barely visible non-uniformity on the bottom of the tank that is not visible here.
After painting, Tamiya X-22 sealed it with a clear semigloss for decaling.
Decals
The decals were the Tichy UTLX set. I lazily went with the default car number. This was my first decaling in some time, and it went better than expected.
After this, it got another coat of X-22 and awaits weathering, along with finer detail painting. After weathering and a dull coat, let’s hope the decal edges are less visible.
Unfinished Weathering Story
Weathering tank cars and steam locomotives is new to me, so I did some research. For a model representing a used look of a middle-aged car, I found a few reference photos. A trip to the Colorado Railroad Museum gave me a few examples of cars in various states of repair:
An additional period photo gave a look more similar to what I seek (from Modeling the SP):
I set out to use oil paints in a dilute wash on a practice piece (an old/used Proto 2000 tank car that I got cheap at a show). The results were just so/so.
Where I conclude this post is with the need to begin a larger weathering “voyage of discovery” before I ruin good models.
Model Link of the Day
YouTuber Scale-A-Ton has been an inspiration for doing better weathering.
Building the USS Johnston DD-557 Fletcher Class Destroyer 1/700 Scale Model Ship