Tuesday, January 16, 2024

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...




   

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