Ignorant questions for Monday

- T
- the OTHER Mike
  
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posted
17 years ago

Mon, Aug 21, 2006 1:37 PM

As I step away from the scenery cart and the dispatchers desk and start looking at motive power for the first time in a long while.........

QUESTION # 1 Atlas, whats the difference between the Silver series / Master Series etc. ?

QUESTION #2

Kato shells, will the SD 40 shells fit on the SD45 units ? ( this sounds like a dumb question seeming that the 40's / 40-2 / 45's should only be different in shell appearance, but like I posted, IGNORANT questions )

QUESTION #3

Weathering. I've been getting some great results using a combination of oils, airbrush, washes and chalks but, I'm only doing great on lighter caes.

Much of our home road equipment that I'm having trouble with is in Tuscan or red.

Before I screw anything up I was practicing on some dark "throw away cars " last night.

Either my mix is thinned too much or I'm not being patient enough to wait for that many multiple coats to show up,

Please tell me your method of weathering darker cars.

Thanking you in advance The class dunce

- W
- Wolf Kirchmeir
  
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posted
17 years ago

Mon, Aug 21, 2006 6:06 PM

Silver is plain DC. Gold is DCC.

Dunno, but if they do, they shouldn't. SD40s and SD45 had different frames.

First, look at and study photographs. Some weathering (eg, road dust) is lighter than the car's paint. Other (eg, rust) is about the same tone. And still other (exhaust soot, coal dust) is of course darker.

I use flat (never glossy) acrylic paint washes flowed on with a brush. Acrylics dry faster than oils, and are more opaque than oil paints. Start with the lighter tones, and work up (down?) to the darker ones. Some streaks of weathering are applied by dry brushing -- load the brush, wipe most of the paint off on a handy paper towel, and streak the remainder where you want it. You should several sizes of brush - some rust streaks are very small, for example. In general, repeated light applications are better than one or two heavy ones.

The translucency of oil paint compared to flat acrylic paint may be the reason you're not seeing the results you expect. OTOH, others claim that repeated light washes of oil paint washes will build up to the desired effect, so take your time, and cultivate patience. :-)

????

As a retired teacher, take it from me: The smart kids are the ones who aren't afraid of asking dumb questions.

HTH

- M
- me
  
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posted
17 years ago

Wed, Aug 23, 2006 2:31 PM

sorry, but you're mistaken :) The SD38, SD39, SD40 and SD45 did share the same frame. The SD40-2 (as well as the SD38-2 and SD45-2) also shared the same frame, but were a little longer than the SD38/39/40/45 frame. Otherwise, why would the SD40 and SD40-2 have those big porches? Since they had a shorter carbody than the SD45 and SD45-2, but the same frame, it left alot of extra space, which they split the difference on both ends As to whether the Kato SD40 and SD45 use the same frame, it may depend on the run. I took the shells off of an SD40 and SD45, and was able to put the SD40 shell on the SD45 frame, but the SD45 shell wouldn't fit on the SD40. I think this was due to an extra weight screwed in on top of the light board on the SD40 frame. The SD45 didn't have that. I imagine if I'd taken the weight off, the SD45 shell would have fit. The frame itself didn't look any different.