I’m in the process of giving my Walther’s and Spectrum heavy weight Great Northern passenger cars a lived in/used look. I know how to weather everything except the roofs. I’ve heard from one of the members at the club that I belong to that they had tar paper roofs, but would that be correct for the Walther’s and Spectrum cars? Any pictures of the prototypes, that I have found, are either taken at a bad angle or too pixelated to tell; they are also pictures of a 60 sum year old cars that have been sitting out in the weather for 50+ years. Any info is greatly appreciated.
Seriously? Did only Great Northern heavyweights have tar paper roofs, or did other railroads use tar paper for roofs on their heavyweights?
I can’t say what the GN may have had, but typical Canadian practice was canvas roofs, coated, or actually impregnated with black paint. Somewhere I have the details of the process but not immediately to hand. It was usually a continuous roll stretched from one end of the car to the other. One wide strip on the top of the clerestory, and two narrower strips on the side roofs. There was also some use of sheet metal, especially where the side of the clerestory was filled in for ducts. Whether canvas of tin, the black soon developed a patina of dirt since washracks only cleaned the sides.
I imagine tar paper would not stand up very long in fast passenger service.
Canvas perhaps with a hot alsphalt top coat., use very narrow (3 scale feet or so) strips of one ply tissue with no pattern, 3M spray adheasive works well and be sure to use masking tape to reduce overspray, lay out a line pattern across the entire roof as a placement guide-overlaping each seam slightly, place the strips from top to bottom of the arch where the roof curves to meet the ends, run all others lengthwise, you have one chance as once the tissue is down it is bonded for life!
Dave
Canvas was used on wooden cars but I doubt it was put on metal roofs. After several coats of paint were applied, it became waterproof. It was used in a similar way on board ships. Metal roofs should be waterproof without canvas. They weathered just like freight car roofs. The paint got dirty, chipped and flaked off.
When new, steel heavy weight cars had steel painted roofs. Sealant was applied to the seams as the panels were riveted together, the roofs were generally painted with the same kind of paint as the rest of the car.
THEN - they aged and leaked, and canvas and asphalt roof coating was applied to make them weather tight again - mostly black, sometimes silver.
These types of roof coatings can be painted with regular paint after they dry, and some railroads did maintain orginal color schemes after resealing roofs, some left them black.
But in any case, the texture of the roof is so fine as not to require any special treatment to model it in HO scale - simply paint them flat black if you wish to model them. ANYTHING you use to simulate the canvas will be too course.
Sheldon
Sheldon is correct – the traditional way to mimic canvas was to use facial tissue cut into strips, but if you actually scaled that down you’d see it would be far more coarse then canvas.
If you get a extra-fine grit foam-type sanding block, it is possible to carefully roughen the surface of the plastic to give it a slight tooth. if done carefully at alternating right angles and then wiping it down with a cloth you can capture something of the texture of canvas without getting too coarse.
Dave Nelson
Dave nelson
Thanks for the info. One more question: Should I use a bristle brush or an airbrush to paint on the black paint?
Spraying allways provides a better finish.
Sheldon
I think most of us find it works OK to just paint the roof black. Unless you’re “superdetailing” the cars, I don’t know if doing more than that is all that justified.
An easy method that I use is to simply tape the car body off with masking tape and spray the roof with a spray can of flat black. The basic $1.00 can works fine and drys fast. When dry I then spray the flat black with a clear flat like dullcote or Krylon flat finish. The second step is optional but I have found that the clear protects the car roof from scuff marks from handling etc. You can always brush paint a small section or three on the roof a glossier black to indicate a spot repair.
Below is an Athearn New York Central Observation car with a Pullman green body. I painted the roof black and painted the observation end gold which I think gives the car some added class whether or not is was prototypical. The car to your left is an IHC mail car that came with a black rof but received a spray of clear flat to eliminate the shine.
Post some pictures when you are done.
