Finishing the PRR G22 Gondola

 

"Brooklyn Car & Foundry" builder's photo of PRR 810328

Picking up where I left off on this build, I added some detail that I felt was best applied after the model had been blasted with aluminum oxide. I added rivets to the side in the locations shown in the photo above. They were harvested from an undecorated Athearn snow plow shell.

The rivets that I applied to the lower crossbearer cover plates are decals from Railtec transfers. While they are white (and perhaps harder to discern,) they are the best shaped rivets on the market.

I am adding a structural steel girder load to the interior. It will be secured in the stake pockets inside the car body. I removed the cast portions, as shown, and added wire to simulate the pockets. The wire was installed in holes drilled into the inside of the side, being careful to NOT drill through to the outer faces of the sides. I formed the wire using simple beading pliers to create the 'U' shapes and secured with ACC. The rivets on the corners were harvested from an undecorated Athearn snow plow shell.

I primed the model with Badger Stynylrez grey primer. It's a fine acrylic primer that I applied by airbrush. I then painted the entire car body, as well as trucks and wheelsets, with Mig Ammo "Red Brown Light" [A. MIG-0914,] which is a nice representation of a slightly faded PRR oxide freight car color. It dried to what I would describe as a "satinish" finish. I sprayed a coat of Quick Shine to create a gloss surface for decaling, again using an airbrush. I applied the decals as shown, including some chalk marks. Both the G22 decals and the chalk marks are National Scale Car offerings. I did omit the reweigh, repack, and brake test data off, as those were applied after some weathering, as the following photos illustrate.

To weather the car, I went exclusively with oils diluted with odorless mineral spirirts. I added some diluted burnt sienna along the bottom of the side sill that was drawn up a little on the surface of the side through capillary action. I also did an overall wash of Payne's grey and a little undiluted paint dabbed in a few places softened and blended by mineral spirits to create some darker areas. 

The reweigh (P50 9-49,) repack, and brake test stencils were all added at various stages of the weathering to appear "newer" than the other stencils. 

The interior was weathered, although it is mostly unfinished as the load will obscure most of the detail. I will create a separate post covering the load that will be published in the coming week or so. You can see the four stake pockets that were created from wire that will serve to secure the load. 

These Funaro & Camerlengo kits "assemble" (there's not a lot to assemble with these... it's more just adding details) into nice representations of the G22. For those who can wait, the Rapido cars should be available in the not too distant future.