Rock Island airslide hopper

Once again, going off on another direction, I'm taking a bit of a break and trying to wrap up another smaller project that I found buried on my workbench after cleaning up from the barn build.  

Delaware Valley released some of these blue Rock airslides in N scale a long time ago, but when BLMA released theirs, the difference in fidelity was night and day difference.  Then when Atlas bought BMLA out, I've been waiting for them to release some in Rock Island, which they have, a stacked block lettering.  Recently I did several up in the 70's speed lettering, but I still wanted a blue car.  

Joe at MTL said they were still planning more of their versions of airslides and would put a request in for a blue version when I asked him recently.  Nothing against Joe or Atlas, but I have waited long enough and with a bit of time to kill due to a snow storm that rolled through here, I have a couple of days off to make something happen.

I started out with a couple of Cotton Belt cars.  I removed the lettering with a toothpick and some 70% alcohol, cleaned them up and dismantled the trucks and couplers.  

I first shot a primer coat using TCP light primer. 

Followed by a coat of  TCP-166 Rock Island Blue.  Once it had dried I gave it a shot of thinned Dullcote so that I can start applying the decals. 

Even though I'm not looking forward to applying all those DATA decals, it should be a fairly easy project.  Easy yes, time consuming, OMG....54 decals per car!

But they're done!

Now Atlas or MTL will release their version...

   

Wrapping up the barn

I got the last of the corrugated sheets installed on the roof I then set about to weather it.

I painted the roof  with a coat of Vallejo Neutral Gray and let it dry overnight, after which I sealed it with a heavy layer of Dullcote to seal it and give the surface some tooth.  Then applied a layer of P3 Armor Wash and let it dry overnight.  The Armor Wash is kind of similar to a black wash, which can be left on if desired.

In my case I used a "Q" tip, damp with alcohol and wiped of the biggest share of the Armor Wash so that it just highlighted the grooves (yeah the lighting sucks and doesn't show the difference very well).  When this was done, I sealed it with another coat of diluted Dullcote to seal the Armor Wash in place.

Now came the fun part; the rust.

This time I decided to try another approach to apply it rather than to lather on oil paints and then wiping them off for a finish.  I started with the craft acrylic paint: Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna and Deep Yellow Ochre.

I started off making a wash from the Deep Yellow Ochre and added a tinge of Burnt Sienna and applied this over the entire roof and wiped off the excess with a "Q" tip.  When dry I used a Deer Foot brush to stipple on straight Burnt Sienna in patches.  After that was dry I applied the Burnt Umber in the same manner.  With each color I used less and less to build up layers, applying them to the bottoms and corners of the metal panels.

Once this was done, I came back with some pan pastels and dusted some of the panels for a slight variation in color.  I also applied some Pans to the rest of the outer face of the barn to give it that weather worn look like I did before.

After this was all done, I applied another diluted coat of Dullcote to lock everything in place and used an Exacto to slightly bend up some of the corners.

So far, so good.

Lying in bed I got the idea to try something different.  While it's an old barn and old house, something just seemed to be missing?  These would look great in a dry western scene, but since these be will located in Louisiana, which can get humid and damp, I'm thinking it should have some moss growing on it?  Not much, just a trace.

So grabbed more craft paint and started adding a bit to the house first.  I started out stippling on tiny bit of black to block the area, then I grabbed some dark green and mixed a bit of black to darken it a bit more as I didn't want it to stand out as green as a lawn.  Once this was done, it looked a little to flat, so I used the deep yellow ochre, added a bit or green and lightly stippled it around the patches, just enough to see small dots.  

I liked that, so on to the barn...

With this project to a stopping point, I can now start laying out the positions of the buildings for the abandoned farm scene and know where I can start carving the floral foam to its final shape.