I get it - the article in the Dec 2017 MR “Building a vintage wooden freight car kit” was a satire, or spoof, or performance art, or whatever…something played for laughs, starting from the “letter” from a “W. Howard Snodgrass” (visiting from the 3 Stooges perhaps?) which can only be read in that Monty Python “British officer’s letter to the editor voice” (“it seems things have become too easy.”) to the Cody-reveal at the end (“Oh yeah, we had an article about updating the AHM model…”)
None the less, there was a model of the helium car built, and the finish seemed pretty good - but in the “seal and sand” step…what was used to seal the wood? I didn’t see anything mentioned in the article itself, and the can in the images was pretty much unreadable no matter how much CSI zoom/enhance was applied. Was it polyurethane, varnish, warm spit, what? Such knowledge could be useful…
Pretty sure the author said he used sanding sealer. Just google “sanding sealer” and several brands (Minwax, Rust-Oleum, Zinsser etc.) of sanding sealer will pop up.
(Sigh) Takes me back to “wood shop” class at West Junior High 40+ years ago…[;)]
Built the helium car in about 1969. I used sanding sealer I purchased at the local paint store in a pint can. Ended up basically trowing away the whole can when I moved.
Nope, I have the article right here, he states “sealing, sanding” in the article text, then repeats “sealed and sanded” several times in the photo captions.
However, searching “sanding sealer” does bring up images of Minwax Sanding Sealer, which seems to match the can in the article images. Could have said that, but somehow, I don’t think they were taking this article too seriously (e.g. the author claims he got the assignment to build the model because he was out the day the decision was made).
It just goes to show how the world has changed. When I was kid, working in the hobby shop, and building wooden freight car kits (late 60’s/early 70’s), everybody knew what sanding sealer was.
Every hobby shop sold it, for building train models and balsa wood airplane models. The various brands of lacquer based paints used on model airplanes all offered sanding sealer as part of their product lines.
I remembered it from my model raocket days - every rocket I had with balsa fins (most of them - all the new ones seem to use a palstic one piece assembly), I would defy you to tell me they were actually wood and not plstic. It took a bit of searching at what passes for a LHS around here these days before I cound what I was after, since I wanted to do the same level of sealing to Micro Mark woof roof material to make it appear to be the metal roof added to open hoppers to make covered hoppers (true to prototype). I did finally find a jar, and like I remembered, iot needs a lot of stirring as it settles out, and it also stunk just like I remembered. But with many coats and increasingly finer sandpaper, I did achieve the result I was after.
And if you ever actually tried to use sanding sealer to make even fine-grained wood look like steel you know what a boring and time consuming activity that is. Eric actually took the time to do it right. Few did back then, I can tell you.
An automotive type filler primer would make sealing and smoothing wood parts pretty easy. These heavy bodied primers are meant to fill in small imperfections and, after sanding, provide a smooth surface for top coat painting.
I don’t know that that would actually soak into the wood. The sanding sealers I used, the first coat especially really soaks into the wood and actually raises part of the grain. Subsequent coats and sanding operations knock this down in finer and finer amounts until you end up with a perfectly smooth surface that no longer feels like wood.
Yes, this is a very time consuming and boring process, at least to do it right. That’s why I’m looking in to drawing and having my roofs 3D printed.
While researching Reading Cabooses, I came across a picture of them painting the interior (lined with pine) with a coat of shellac as a sealer on the raw wood. So its prototypical.