I worked on the roof next. I took some thin styrene strips and superglued them on to the brass after scuffing it up pretty good. Some pictures appeared to show the roofs of these cars covered with canvas, and others looked like plain steel. Some had these crosswise steel braces, and others had drip rails that ran the length of the car. Following the picture of the car I was basing my model on, I added the cross braces. When the glue had dried, I painted the roof with Krylon gray primer to give the surface tooth and texture. It was ready for weathering, but I will hold off on gluing the roof to the body of the car until I have finished detailing the inside of the car.
The paint schemes and lettering styles for Great Western Railways freight wagons over the decades is probably diverse enough to fill a book. In fact, I know that there are books out there devoted to just this subject. Not wanting to purchase one just for this project, I turned to the internet for resource materials. First I looked for actual pictures, but there aren't many and they weren't all that helpful- they didn't always show the w5 style car I was building, they were blurry or grainy, usually in black and white, and rarely showed the roof. My next idea was to look for commercial models of the car that I could copy, such as those from Bachmann or Hornby. I found a couple, but none in the exact style car I was building. I take for granted the wealth of USA-prototype railroad information I can quickly put my finger on, mostly because I know where to look.
Knowing my car was going to be gray, the two unknown questions were what color should the underframe be and what color should be the roof be. I first painted the model all over with Tamiya 'Imperial Japanese Navy" gray. Then, the underframe was carefully handpainted with flat black. I had one picture that showed this was correct for at least one period in time. I thought that the all-gray car was too bland and wanted something a little more interesting. The end solebeams were left gray, though in some pictures they appeared black too and in others were the same color as the rest of the end. Silly GWR ...
I should point out that nearly every picture I have stored on my computer of these cattle wagons is also lettered in a different manner. No doubt the Great Western Railway's standard lettering schemes changed over time, and since I wasn't quite sure of the date of the picture I was using as a reference I had difficulty researching what type of decals to order. So, I went all in and picked a big set that covered a lot of options. Naturally, the mail held it up a bit. These decals had to go over the bumpy texture of the crossbeams on the sides and ends, and ample use of Microsol was required. The car number I chose was already on the sheet, and it was close to the one in the picture I was using. Oddly, the car was also labeled "8-tons" (I think) but that option wasn't on the decal sheet. There were many other options but not eight. So, I made it a ten-ton wagon. If I really wanted to get cute, I could weather over the number and then no one would know.
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