I’m going to be doing the same to some passenger cars, I might rethink buying the Alclad primer.
Your RDC looks good!
Mike.
Deckroid,[:D] 
that RDC is looking nice! Good going and Congratulations!
Looking forward to seeing the finished results.
Regarding the black base: I covered this on the Santa Fe dome car thread.
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/p/195132/2131266.aspx
Remember: Alclad II’s creator was orginally targeting aircraft and cars…not SS passenger rail cars. He had asked for input from model railroaders and had not gotten much feedback. So, normally for metalizing most vehicles, the black base is the way to go.
HOWEVER, we are trying to imitate the Budd 300-series stainless steel. Using a black basecoat / primer foundation will yield a finish that is slightly darker than the prototype. I remember speaking with modelers that complained about that.
As an ex-body shop tech at a transit agency, I went into experimentation mode and eventually realized that the basecoat color was the key! Experimented with colors and found that grays basecoats, light and dark, were the way to go. To keep it simple, I suggested to modelers to go with Scale Coat’s NYC Dk Gray (for newer or well maintained appearances) and SC NYC Lt Gray (for warmer, more aged appearances since it contains a small amount of red tint)
The experimenting worked as I was able to compare one of my cars to a similar prototype, and the results were promising. I shared my results on forums and with Alclad.
But by all means take the route that makes you smile the best! I hope that this won’t be your first metalizing job! The more you do it, the better your result
Bad Bummer on the shell melting, but it looks like you are moving forward now. Looking good.
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-Kevin
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Thanks for that, AntonioFP45. [Y]
Mike.
I realize the chrome might be a shade darker than normal, but the photos I have found of NP Budds are all “in service dirty”. Very few photos have that pollished sheen found after a good cleansing. I do plan on weathering them, putting grime on the trucks and diesel smudge on the vents.
But Antonio is right… I will never look at silver cars the same again.
Hi Deckroid.
So glad that you’re enjoying your first “Stainless Steel” project! Thank you for the kind words. I enjoy metalizing and am glad to help fellow modelers anytime.
Respectfully, I should have clarified a bit better regarding the appearances that we can target.
A key for imitating Budd, PS, and ACF stainless steel surfaces with Metalizer is not the sheen level…it’s the color tone of the ss surface, regardless of cleaniness and and depth of reflection (or lack of it).
Whether clean & shiny…dirty & faded…aged or restored, Budd SS generally exhibits a medium gray tone, Pullman Standard a "bluish gray tone, and ACF and “whitish” gray tone.
I think that your car is going to look really sharp once you finish weathering it!
I hope you plan on doing more units. Good news is that P1K RDC’s show up on ebay at affordable prices. I usually hunt for passenger cars on ebay that are in the least popular paint schemes (since I’m going to paint strip them anyway). They usually wind up selling for lower prices. That’s how I’ve built up my “stainless steel fleet”. [;)]