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Vat Car Part 4 Paint and Lettering |
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Choosing
a paint and lettering scheme has proven to be the most challenging aspect of
this project. Since this was not a
common car, I only found one photo of the Heinz Company of Pennsylvania's
standard gauge car and that photo was B&W.
The company had two pickle cars and they were used during the 1910-1920
decade. Without numerous references
to get ideas from, I searched for decals, finding several HO decal sets for
pickle cars, but wasn't sure they would be useable; so I decided to create my
own scheme. An easy way out is to paint the car two colors, such as boxcar red with a black roof and underframe, and letter it for the railroad, as if it was only being leased by a particular business. |
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Photo 1 Paint Scheme Underframe/trucks: Model Master
Rust 1785 |
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Lettering Scheme *Company name: Hess Pickle
Company Aurora, Illinois (black on
yellow) made with an inkjet printer and colored paper. |
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Painting For some reason, the yellow and green paint took several days to dry.
This made the painting process slow and it may have been speeded up using
spray paints instead of bottle paints. Paint the underframe and the trucks and coupler pockets with Rust. Paint the roof top, edge, end, and eaves; the end of the car, the end
floorboards, and the outside face of the end trestles with the Dark Green. Paint the vats, car sides, roof side board and main body with the Zinc
Chromate. Paint the green areas again if needed and keep the green off of the
yellow. Let this dry. Do a first coat of yellow. Apply the last coat of yellow. The
green must be thoroughly dry so it won't blend if the yellow touches it.
I poured the yellow onto a flat plastic dish, spread it out, and gave it
a minute or two to dry then began painting.
This caused the paint to thicken. Touch up the green as necessary. Use a drill bit slightly larger than the truss rod material and reopen
the holes in the trestle ends. Glue
in the vats and roof. |
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Lettering Reporting marks/number. I used the 3/16" numbers/letters from the sheet and put "HPCX 12" over the left truck. 1/8" lettering centered at the left vat may have looked better. The billboard lettering could be made from the lettering set but I found it easier to use my inkjet printer. At Hobby Lobby, I bought a sheet of yellow 65 lb. cardstock that matched the Deep Yellow already on the car. A new document was created in Microsoft Word with the text centered and 1" margins on all sides. The company name was typed and the font style changed to match the lettering. 16pts were used for the name and 14pts for the city/state. The built in ruler showed that the lettering was short enough to fit on the car. I made two sets of signs at different sizes in the event one would not work. The lines of text were quadruple spaced so there was adequate white space around them. The printout was allowed to dry for ten minutes before cutting. |
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Photo 2 Cutting out the sign: 1. Lay a ruler along the bottom of the lettering and draw lines in the margins. Do the top and both ends. Photo 2 2. From the lines previously drawn, measure 1/8" to the outside and make a mark. This 1/8" creates the white space around the letters. Now connect the marks and draw lines all the way across the paper, mark these lightly using very little pressure as you don't want the pencil to emboss the paper, plus this line may end up on the sign and will need to be erased. 3. Hold the sheet up to a light, with the backside facing you and lightly sketch in where the letters/numbers are. Lay face down and put a strip of masking tape on these marks. The masking tape should be directly behind the numbers/letters and cover the cutting lines drawn in #2. The masking tape prevents glue from soaking through the paper and destroying the lettering.
Photo 3 Turn the sheet over and cut out the signs with a metal straight edge and razor blade. If any pencil lines are on the sign, erase them. |
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Conclusion In Part 5 the final details are added and the car completed. |
