I don't own an airbrush, so to paint the cars I needed to use rattle cans. I also wanted to avoid the paint found at the big box stores as it usually comes out much too thick, and the nozzles are terrible (except for the Krylon ones). One flatcar was going to be done in Burlington Northern green, and the other in Conrail brown. Both choices are throwbacks to two railroads that I have always been fascinated with. Had a hobby store been open, I could have wandered in and easily picked out the right cans of spray paint. But, they aren't, so I relied on a non-local (80 minutes round trip) hobby store to choose them for me and leave them hidden outside for me to pick up. The Tamiya paint he chose (TS-1 "Red Brown and TS-35 "Park Green" are pretty close).
After using primer on the underside to hide all my ink markings, I painted the cars with multiple light coats. I didn't bother to heavily paint the top deck side because it would be hidden with board. But, I couldn't help but notice that on the underside even after priming and painting the cars some of my Sharpie markings were still visible. They should disappear during the weathering treatments I plan to apply, but it is still a bit concerning. Also, at this time I noticed that the thin styrene deck had warped so I sanded it flat. As you can see, some areas were worse than others. I then resprayed the tops, even though it will all be hidden under the decking.
The flatcars looked pretty naked without their decking. For these cars though I wanted to use real wood. I looked into purchasing HO scale 2x12" boards from suppliers and cutting them down to length myself but then I ran into an EBay posting from "Crescent Locomotive Works" who sells laser cut wooden boards in various lengths. He didn't have the side I needed off hand, but we worked out a deal for him to custom cut them for me. It cost only about $7 for enough boards for two cars, and each end cut is perfectly square. That is a bargain to me. They were stained in a "dark" ink wash (1 pint of rubbing alcohol, 2 teaspoons ink) using a recipe I likely stole from Dave Frary.
The boards were divided into five batches and added to the alcohol at staggered times, such that the first group was in the stain for 12 hours and the last batch was only in for 4 hours. Then they were all left to dry overnight on some paper. They really looked pretty similar in color and I was a bit disappointed. On my shelf is a can of dark Minwax stain left over from my handlaying days, so I considered pulling it out to further color the ties. But, in the end I just used what I had made. As you can see from the car, there actually is a bit of a difference in the color of the wood. Not so much as to be obnoxious, but enough that it looks pretty realistic.
As mentioned above, the flatcar tops were not perfectly flat. In fact, on the Conrail model especially it was nothing close to flat. That thin styrene buckled quite a bit. Since I am modeling the Conrail car as an older car in MOW service a bit of ruff and tumble is a good thing. Perhaps planned? And, I wanted the deck boards to be a bit more worn down and rough than those on the BN car. Even still, I had trouble getting the boards to come close to lying flat on the deck and had to result to clamps. So, the procedure went like this: lay down a bead of Loctite Gel Superglue, apply two boards, and clamp with clothespins for 20 minutes. Working from home, it was easy. Had I only had evenings to do it, though, it would have been utterly frustrating.
Also, I had to notch the boards around the stake pockets. It wasn't terrible difficult, especially with a chisel-blade knife, but more than once I laid down the superglue only to discover I had forgotten to notch the boards. It took a few minutes for the glue to set, so I could easily pull the board up and cut away the offending areas. The Conrail flatcar will need a bit more weathering of everything, including the deck, and I might try and scratch up the wood a bit to represent a dragged load. But, in the end, I am really pleased with how the cars came out.
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