Announcing Z Central Weathering Challenge

Bill,

I really like now you weathered the inside of the hopper. It as a nice rust, aged look. Good job!

Rob

Thanks Rob! The recipe is to wet the inside surface with "blue windshield washing fluid". Then paint on a wash of Poly Scale Rust, Oily Black, and a hint of Flat Aluminum thinned with lots of "blue windshield washing fluid." Float it on and let it dry - walk away. Add more coats later, if necessary.
More tips coming soon in the "Weathering Challenge"!
Bill Mock

Well, its Jan 1, so its time for the weatheeeriiiing challenge. Since we all model different eras, we will have two cars to choose from. One from the modern era, and one from the transition era. The mordern era is going to be a 50' Railbox. Thats any Railbox thats not high cube. The second car is a New York Central 40' boxcar with walkways. Now its time to get our cars dirty, grimmy, and nasty. Just make it look natural. Remember to document what you did to the car and share it with everybody. Also, step by step pictures would be awesome.

First disaster story of 2010........

This really happened guys....

I read the announcement about the weathering challenge at about 11:40 P.M.
"Ok" I thought, "I have a 50' Railbox I can use for the challenge"

So I go downstairs to the garage where my hinged carrying case is sitting on the floor next to my work bench...(not the best place to have your carrying case sitting)

I picked it up, flipped the latches on both sides and opened up the hinged top.........so far so good.

Well, "I'll just hold the front of the case against my stomach" I reasoned, (shouldn't be too much of a problem with my generous belly obliging nicely.) I pushed the case bottom against my stomach and with both hands commenced to open the lid up all the way to vertical. Still a decent experience thus far.

"Ah, there is the car I want to weather for the challenge" I thought to myself....quite pleased that I was actually going to do something different than just grow trees, which seems to be my lot in life lately.

Then Murphy did it again......the bottom of the case slipped and tipped down, spilling two Geep 35s and about 20 assorted rolling stock onto the hard, 37 year old, aged cement floor.

I admit, I was stunned for only half a second, then I also admit that I uttered something about beaches being sunny in California, even for this time of year.

There on the floor, to my disbelieving eyes, lay a scattered pile of twisted, broken, scratched, and dented Z equipment. "Oh no, my life is over" I thought to myself.

"How could I be so stupid and careless" I questioned, after all, "don't I prize each and every piece of my precious Z collection, small as it is?"

I knelt down and began to survey the damage.......wheels scattered in all directions, broken couplers, bent railing on some of Kurt's beautiful tank cars, scratched paint,broken edges of cars, even missing loads.

Crying by myself, kneeling in the garage at midnight 2010 is not manly I thought.

"Is this how 2010 is going to go for me?" I wondered to myself.

No, I won't cry, I'll just pick up the pieces and take stock of what is what.

I casually tossed all the pieces into the foam lined carrying case, "why bother being careful now" I mused. Foam lined box for protection indeed......

Getting on my hands and knees I knelt and slowly picked up the remains of what was once my pride and joy. I had to bend way down with a flash light and drag odds and ends out from under the work bench and then I slowly walked to my dental lab and sat down to more closely examine my immediate project of putting Humptey Dumptey back together again.

It is now over an hour since I got out the super glue, tweezers, magnifying loops and slowly rebuilt my fleet.

I guess now it will be much easier to imagine a railroad that has seen a lot of abuse and wear and tear on the rolling stock. The locos weren't damaged hardly at all, (miracle of miracles) but now I can really appreciate the idea of a weathering contest.

I have some prime candidates to work on so all is not lost. "How ironic" I thought to myself as I straightened and glued and adjusted couplers, trucks, and wheels.

How easy it will be now to imagine that my rolling stock has seen many a mile and my railroad is not in the best of financial condition as evidenced by the rather 'beat up' run down appearance of some of the cars.

Oh, most of the cars are still in good condition and will require very little weathering, but there are a couple that just might qualify for the cutting torch in the future.

Actually a lot of rolling stock now days is in rather poor condition appearance wise so I think I may have a jump start on my project.

I just wonder if this little experience so early into 2010 is a harbinger of hard times to come?

Gee, at this rate I'll be lucky to see my railroad last through the winter

Oh yeah, I almost forgot......Happy New Year........I think?

tealplanes wrote:

First disaster story of 2010........

This really happened guys....

I read the announcement about the weathering challenge at about 11:40 P.M.
"Ok" I thought, "I have a 50' Railbox I can use for the challenge"

So I go downstairs to the garage where my hinged carrying case is sitting on the floor next to my work bench...(not the best place to have your carrying case sitting)

I picked it up, flipped the latches on both sides and opened up the hinged top.........so far so good.

Well, "I'll just hold the front of the case against my stomach" I reasoned, (shouldn't be too much of a problem with my generous belly obliging nicely.) I pushed the case bottom against my stomach and with both hands commenced to open the lid up all the way to vertical. Still a decent experience thus far.

"Ah, there is the car I want to weather for the challenge" I thought to myself....quite pleased that I was actually going to do something different than just grow trees, which seems to be my lot in life lately.

Then Murphy did it again......the bottom of the case slipped and tipped down, spilling two Geep 35s and about 20 assorted rolling stock onto the hard, 37 year old, aged cement floor.

I admit, I was stunned for only half a second, then I also admit that I uttered something about beaches being sunny in California, even for this time of year.

There on the floor, to my disbelieving eyes, lay a scattered pile of twisted, broken, scratched, and dented Z equipment. "Oh no, my life is over" I thought to myself.

"How could I be so stupid and careless" I questioned, after all, "don't I prize each and every piece of my precious Z collection, small as it is?"

I knelt down and began to survey the damage.......wheels scattered in all directions, broken couplers, bent railing on some of Kurt's beautiful tank cars, scratched paint,broken edges of cars, even missing loads.

Crying by myself, kneeling in the garage at midnight 2010 is not manly I thought.

"Is this how 2010 is going to go for me?" I wondered to myself.

No, I won't cry, I'll just pick up the pieces and take stock of what is what.

I casually tossed all the pieces into the foam lined carrying case, "why bother being careful now" I mused. Foam lined box for protection indeed......

Getting on my hands and knees I knelt and slowly picked up the remains of what was once my pride and joy. I had to bend way down with a flash light and drag odds and ends out from under the work bench and then I slowly walked to my dental lab and sat down to more closely examine my immediate project of putting Humptey Dumptey back together again.

It is now over an hour since I got out the super glue, tweezers, magnifying loops and slowly rebuilt my fleet.

I guess now it will be much easier to imagine a railroad that has seen a lot of abuse and wear and tear on the rolling stock. The locos weren't damaged hardly at all, (miracle of miracles) but now I can really appreciate the idea of a weathering contest.

I have some prime candidates to work on so all is not lost. "How ironic" I thought to myself as I straightened and glued and adjusted couplers, trucks, and wheels.

How easy it will be now to imagine that my rolling stock has seen many a mile and my railroad is not in the best of financial condition as evidenced by the rather 'beat up' run down appearance of some of the cars.

Oh, most of the cars are still in good condition and will require very little weathering, but there are a couple that just might qualify for the cutting torch in the future.

Actually a lot of rolling stock now days is in rather poor condition appearance wise so I think I may have a jump start on my project.

I just wonder if this little experience so early into 2010 is a harbinger of hard times to come?

Gee, at this rate I'll be lucky to see my railroad last through the winter

Oh yeah, I almost forgot......Happy New Year........I think?

"Oh, the humanity!"

Seriously Loren, My sympathies, I think we've all done it at some point. I bought a Bachmann Richmond 4-4-0 in HO, DCC with sound. Bought it in from the US so paid well over the odds, what with Duty and Tax.
I got the test track out and put it on the bench, connected my controller and blew the whistle, set the bell ringing and drove the whole shebang (bell still ringing) off the end of the bench.
As I sat there with my eyes screwed tight shut, I could hear my Father's voice.
"The man that never made a mistake, never made anything!".

Loren, I feel your pain. Been there, done that, felt pretty stupid (and I try my best to blame myself instead of poor old Mr. Murphy).

Anyway, if you'd rather sell than fix, I'll be happy to purchase the Geeps as-is. But it sounds as though they fared better than most.

Loren... I really hope that you are getting your 'bad luck' out early and finished for the New Year. As painfull as this 'little accident' was... maybe you are done for the year and it will only be blue skies and clear sailing from this point on. For you... I really hope so.

But... do me a favor... make sure none of that 'luck' of yours happens to make it in the next shipment to me. I need this year to be a huge improvement over the past 3 years.

Loren, First, what are you and the rest of the state side fellows doing up so late? Second, this might not have happened had you six pack abs instead of sixpack flabs! Third, 2010 can only get better from here. Cheers, Jim CCRR:woohoo:

Hey guys,
I woke up with a good attitude and I'm hoping today will be much better. I am a little worried though because I'm going to use my table saw and chop saw. Wish me luck.


I really had to laugh about some of your comments......thanks guys and I too feel pain for every mishap story....especially when you drive your new loco off the end of the track:ohmy:

Loren

I too am looking forward to learning something from watching all of the weathering experts duke it out for the honors. I've got plenty to do on my layout projects to yet have attempted to do such detailed work ... maybe watching these efforts will entice me to focus a bit more on my rolling stock.

I have now repaired the damaged cars the best I can that I dropped on New Year's eve, and have done some maintenance on other cars, installed FVM wheels on some of my rolling stock...(the absolute cat's pajamas) and have discovered in the process of all this the joy and frustration all over again of working with coupler springs, screws, etc.

It was fun to get my hands 'dirty' again after so many months of just module construction and tree making. Oh there are trees yet to be made, but in going back to some of the basics that I hadn't touched in years almost, (like rolling stock maintenance)I immediately gained a new respect for all the little details most of you have been doing day in and day out.

Boy, it feels good to get back in the trenches.
Loren

Listening to the discussions from everyone here it was decided the first challenge would be a freelance challenge. You may weather your car(s) any way you like as long as you use a:
50' Railbox boxcar that is not a high cube
or
40' New York Central boxcar with walkways.
Both of these cars should be available to everyone if you don't already own one. The NYC was a December Micro Trains release so should be easy to find.
You may use a prototype photo as a guideline or use your imagination.

Let the dirt fly!

Jerry