Weathering a White Billboard Reefer

Just a quickie…my next weathering project….a Roundhouse HO white wooden billboard-reefer. I think I'll keep it to a light fade and light dust on the running-gear and sills….but maybe not  :o))

  So I finished this weathering project today. I learned that white-boxcars are, in my opinion, harder to do a credible weathering job on than red,brown,oxide or black cars.

  

As  always  my first step was to spray the car down with some Testors Dullcote out of a rattle-can. 

I always do this for 3 reasons, #1) it tones down and dulls the shiny plastic look of the model, 

                                                #2) it gives the model some tooth to allow weathering powders and/or paint to better adhere to the model. 

                                               #3) it seems to help disappear accidental fingerprints, from this point on through the rest of the  weathering process I only handle the model while wearing gloves, until finished. 

  I next removed the trucks , wheels and couplers, and mixed up a small amount of white paint with some tan and light grey paints and proceeded to fade the sides of the car…this dulls down the white body colour of the car and slightly bleaches out the black and red lettering, giving the car a bit of a sun-worn appearance.  

  Next I ran the black and red of the letters using water-colour pencils….unfortunately the effect, being quite subtle, did not show up on the pics…my camera skills are sadly lacking….  :0(

  I followed that with a coat of black to the roof and the ends of the car and then a dusting of road grime to the lower edges and corners of the car.

The trucks were scuffed-up with a fibre-pen and given a coat of dirt, with a bit of rust applied to the springs…the wheel faces were rusted and dirtied up in a similar fashion. 

Job done.