Re: C&S Outside Metal Roofs -- Painting and Weathering Models

Posted by Jim Courtney on Jun 13, 2020; 7:52pm
URL: http://c-sng-discussion-forum.254.s1.nabble.com/C-S-Outside-Metal-Roofs-Painting-and-Weathering-Models-tp15730p15731.html

First, some thoughts about painted roofs and roof walks.

I, too, for years thought that C&S metal roofs and roof walks were never painted. I have built models of SUF cars with metal roofs in both HOn3 and Sn3, and tied to duplicate what I thought they looked like, painting the cast metal roofs various shades of "galvanized metal" and painted roof walks with Floquil "foundation", weathered with black and brown shoe dyes in alcohol. I thought that since un-colored basswood weathers to nice grays and browns this way, the "foundation" on textured white Evergreen styrene would duplicate the effect. Never was satisfactory. I tried using stained strip wood roof walks and laterals on "galvanized" roofs, too, but they never looked right.

Finding color photos of standard gauge freight cars from the late 1930's and early 1940's made me reevaluate the whole premise.

Most of us model the C&S in its last decade, and likely most of the paint had weathered off the neglected roofs and roof walks. Even when the RGS repainted and relettered the "Miller" cars in 1938, they may have only repainted the sides and ends and not bothered with the roof.

Consider these photos from the Library of Congress:





Most boxcars in these immediate pre-WWII photos have roofs (wooden and metal) fairly well maintained, most painted but dulled with coal soot. Most running boards are painted, a few show weathered wood and at least one has new bare wood replacement boards.

CM Auditor pointed out when I first posted these photos in 2015:  Looking at the Colorado Midland specs for box cars in both 1886 and 1890, the specification for running boards was the color of car mixed with 6 oz of find sand per gallon of paint used.

So I think it is likely that all C&S metal roofs and running boards were originally painted in the first decade. Question is how were they maintained as the cars were shopped.

So, two questions from my point of view, what were the prototype practices and how does the C&S modeling community paint and weather C&S roofs? Show us photos of your roofs!

My current attempts are to use Prismacolor water color pencils over a base coat of PolyScale acrylic "Rock Island Maroon", my go to color for C&S freight car red. I have a stash of about 12 bottles left from c.2008. When those are gone, I will probably try Tru-Color paints that has a mix by the same name.