Scraping Model Railroad Cars
Or what to do with those old metal kits that we have collected over the years.
We have all have them after being in the Model Railroading hobby for almost any length of time. Somehow we end up with an old cast Zinc metal car kit from the 1950s. They were ether a Roundhouse or Ulrich to name a few companies made them. They are kind of cool but are on the crude side compaired to the models produced nowadays.
Find them at almost any train swap meet or on Ebay, but we may soon find that some parts have been lost or the cast metal had warped or broken over time. So I scratched my head trying to find what do with the kit, How about a scrap yard relic. What is nice about this is these early kits, they were made using a two piece injection die, so the parts; floor roof sides and ends would have to be glued or screwed together.
I disassembled this 1950s ore hopper and striped the paint on this old Hopper car. Someday my thinking was to reassemble the car. but found some Zinc casting flaws. The Hopper was the right size for a spot in the scrap yard so as not to overwhelm the scene. I also didn't want to cut up metal sides and car castings thinking could have some historic model railroading significance someday, (along with thousands of them in train rooms already).
The castings were airbrushed using Floquil, Mineral Brown. Beer Flats are used to hold projects for painting and they can stack easily.
Weathering was done using a wash of Latex flat rust color. I use a heat gun with this to speed during when applying thin wash of paint.
The car was resembled using a small amount of glue, however leaving the sides off.
Notice how the wash highlights the rivet detail in the castings
The car sides appear to have been tourch cut and dropped to the ground.