I just picked up a few Kadee skeleton log car kits at my LHS yesterday, and wasn’t aware that they were unpainted metal when I brought them home. What’s the proper (or most common) color used for these? And since my LHS only really stocks Modelflex and Model Master paints, is the color available from either of them?
By the way, these are some extremely nice cars, with nice rolling quality and just about the highest level of detail you can get.[:D] They’re very challenging to build, but that just makes it all even better!
As I recall Westside Lumber, Pickering Lumber and Clover Lumber, all in the Sierra Nevada, painted their log cars some shade of box car red. It’s hard to tell after they’ve been in service for awhile. I built a string of log cars in 1:29 and painted them red oxide primer. I’m sure black was also used.
I don’t know about in the US but over here they where Grey or Bauxite paint and black iron work or the grey that the wood weathers too with iron work in natural rust.
Depended on the logging company and how much care they took of there rolling stock.
I paint my Kadee disconnects roof brown. I intend to scratch build a number of Russel 22ft log cars that were used by the Weed Lumber Company in the early 1900’s and later used by the California & Northeastern ( SP Sub) and then by the SP. The black and white factory Photos from the Russel original catalog almost certainly shows that the steel frames were painted black. There were wood decks over the draft gear at the ends of the cars and I will distress and stain these decks weathered wood. I also have black and white photos of these cars in service on the SP. The metal frames appear to be a lighter color and I suspect the SP ordered them in mineral or box car red like every other freight car they own.
Typical here in BC was black, with white letters/numbers. But they would not see a paint shop very often, so well weathered would be appropriate. With lots of bark debris.
I like to use ground up bark and saw dust on my log cars and even on my many wood burning logging locos. I sprinkle it on and then use diluted white glue to hold it just like I use on ballast. It really looks good on logging flat cars.
Weyerhaeuser in Longview Wn. used a green on their log cars. Floquil once had a Weyerhaeuser Green in their line of paint that was quite close.
Simpson used box car red.
As was stated lots of dirt and debris. I noticed on some of the Weyco cars there would be a T section Bettendorf on one end of a car and a roller bearing truck on the other end. Many combinations possible except Archbar trucks.
Was it me, I’d spray paint them with red auto primer. It dries dead flat, sticks well to metal, one coat covers anything, and comes out boxcar red. The prototype used box car red for everything 'cause it was cheap, weatherproof, and didn’t show rust spots, being mostly rust itself. Prep the metal surface with a hot soap & water wash (trip thru the dishwasher is good) followed by pickling in a mild acid. Supermarket vinegar is good. The acid puts some tooth into the metal surfaces to which the paint can adhere.
You could go with black, a lot of stuff was painted black, but on a model black hides all the details. A box car red model will show better.
Wood parts would have been creosoted like ties and telephone poles are. When new creosote is a very dark brown and it weathers out to light brown and finally driftwood gray.
WVP&P/Mower Lumber Company used a red oxide on their wood log cars.
Meadow River Lumber Company painted all of their steel E series log cars a shade of black, and their steel B series log cars were actually white, with red lettering. Those are always recgonizable when seeing a picture of a MRL log train!
Of what I have been told by the oldtimers down here, red oxide was used because it protected the wood better, and the lead in the paint helped preserve and keep the wood from rotting. Metal log cars could really be painted anything you wanted…