How often do you see a car or locomotive out on ebay that looks just like what you need and want and is available for little money – and then you discover that it was cheap for a reason. I had such a buy recently where my desire was stronger than my criticism. The car was indeed in a bad shape with the decal film coming off, the body sat on its trucks in an oblique angle painted with tons of oils. But was a good buy anyway because I learned a lot. And I do now really appreciate the craftsmanship of the early days – the overall dimensions are just right and I love the idea to reflect the long tradition of model railroading by running a piece of equipment that was manufactured when a UP FEF-2 was brand new.
This is what the car looked like when I got it on my work bench. While partially coming off the decals stuck remarkably in some eras. Since I wanted to avoid complete disassembly I blasted them away with very fine glass powder in the sand blasting machine. Then I scrubbed off all the oil paint with laquer thinner. Outdoors, oh yes.
I smoothed out the panels with a sanding sponge and it looked O.K. to me. Ladders and grab irons were removed for that step.
The car received then a improvised breaking system so it can travel at eye level without of looking too clumsy.
After priming and painting the car with Tamiya Hull Red the trouble started. I found that the wooden body was still not smooth enough for achieving an acceptable decalling job. I decided to sand the worst spots and fill the gaps with putty used in plastic modelling.
Better. But that's what you get when avoiding a "full strip". The plywood surface is far from being perfectly smooth. Here I clearly decided in favour of the "antique touch".
Here's the lettered car. I used Tichy Train Group UP Autocar decals that is for A-50-16 class cars of 40 foot length. I love Mr. Tichy's decals, they have a slightly raised surface, slide easily andlook great.
I customised the lettering a bit to reflect an A-50-14 class car. That included a run of custom decals with builder stencil, building date, revision locale and date etc. Painting information left of the door has not been added and there are still some mistakes in the data but I consider this car as a starting point for future accuracy *smile*
Those of you familiar with UP car lettering will soon find out that the green lettering crew at the Omaha shops in 1944 painted the slogans on the wrong sides of the car. Amazing :-) Let's say that adds an other story to the layout.
Do you have similar experiences with wooden car kits? Is there an easy way to fill the cracks and gaps?
Thanks for watching!
