Detailing Stony's LCL Cement Canisters Here is a photo of the cement canisters in their raw form. I cut the sprue lengthwise, so the sprue will now act as a holder and a stand for painting, decaling, and sealing. A word of caution, the eyelets on top are very fragile. After breaking an eyelet, I used the barrels and sprue to 'handle' them. You will notice the size of them compared to a MTL caboose.
The next photo shows one set of canisters painted and decaled in the foreground, while the other set stil needs numbers and 'writing'. On Ebay I watch for N-scale decal lots, either partial or whole, usually you can find a great deal. Sometimes finding the right HO decals will work as well. The same applies when I go to train shows, when a modeler is 'done' with their decals, I find I can find more uses for them in Z. These LCL Cement Canisters were actually decaled using left-over Burlington Northern N-scale decal sheets. I used the tiny writing for the canister messages while using 5-digit number sets to label the canister. There are a few things that stand out from the proto are the numbers on the proto canisters are Railroad Roman style font, and that there should be more 'writing' on the sides of the canisters. Other than the two items I have mentioned, I think they turned out great. The shown BN partial decal sheets I paid a few bucks for a bag load of them so decorating them was very cheap.
Before painting them, and after I seperated the halves, I gave the model a 70% Rubbing Alcohol bath and scrubbed them down with an old 'soft' toothebrush. When dry, I used my Valspar Primer #65056 Red-Oxide 'rattle can' to spray paint them. When the paint dried I then gave them a sealing coat of Rustoleum Matte Clear. And after the sealing was dried is when I decaled them.
Once the decals have been applied and dried, I then gave the canisters another coat of Rustoleum Matte Clear. There again, you still can add more 'detail' decals to authenticate the protos, if you wished too. The next photo shows a custom decorated Soo Line 50' gondola with a load of canisters, while the other set is in the open.
The canisters really did not turn out that bad, bare without any weathering agents. I plan to add spilled cement dust to a set, and I will post more photos of that process. Basically I have a set of artist chalks that I sand down to get to dust form to apply with a brush, but this might be different... I may try a different technique to apply the spilled cement dust. Below you will find a few proto photos of the LCL Cement Canisters to help compare your work.
John
