Chris Schmucks’ photos on the RLW website show the cou-
plers painted the same red-oxide as the cars. I left mine black,
but cut the trip pins short and used powders to weather the
coupler and box. To create a hint of metal under the soot and
wear of the trucks, I spray Scalecoat Graphite onto a plas-
tic food-container lid and then paint the springs and metal
bands with a fine brush, over which I weather with rust and
soot powders. (Note: NeoLube works very well to stain and
weather both trucks and couplers without sticking them shut
like paint! -- MCF)
As each pair is a two-evening project, you’ll have a great cut of
six 20-ton coal cars by the end of the week. Fun to build and
detail, these hoppers make for an eyebrow-raising, era-evoking
element of any Turn-of-the-Century layout.
M.C. Fujiwara is a writer and
editor, as well as the model
railroad layout designer of
Yardgoat Layout Designs
(
. He
lives in his native San Francisco
Bay Area with his wife and two
children, who enjoy helping
their dad build his N-scale
layout projects by making
trees, painting rocks, and
running trains.
