My Greg Martin car, Part 2

Thinking about Greg Martin’s fine legacy of having created, promoted and managed the series of “Shake’n’Take” kitbashing projects at the annual Prototype Rails meetings hosted by Mike Brock in Cocoa Beach, Florida every January, I began the process of building one of those project cars. It’s the 2011 project, a Hormel meat reefer, as I described in the first of these posts (see it at: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-greg-martin-memorial.html ).
     That previous post described all the modeling work, and the components were all ready for paint. I began with the underframe with all brake gear installed. I simply painted it flat black with a quality rattle can. Next came the car body. I wanted the side sill and sill steps to remain black, so masked those areas and painted the roof and ends with Tamiya ”NATO Brown,” paint TS-62. Finally, the car sides, still separate, were primed with Tamiya “Haze Grey,” TS-32. Passing comment: probably if you look in the encyclopedia for a discussion of “quality rattle can,” there will be a picture of a Tamiya product.
     The car sides of Hormel reefers evolved in the 1950s from a yellowish orange to a light orange. For this, I chose to use Star Brand paint. The color is Star’s STR-27, “S.P./P.F.E. Daylight Orange.” This paint dries glossy enough to accept decals with no other preparation.
     Here are all the parts freshly painted. You can see on the body where I taped to preserve the black steps. The sides are orange, because I am going to apply the 1950s paint scheme, to go with the outside metal roof (the cars originally had wood board roofs).

     The next step was applying the fine decals provided for this project. These custom decals were provided by 5th Avenue Car Shops and are a joy to use. And in the present case, it was really easy and convenient to be able to apply the decals to the sides while still separate and lying flat on the bench.

     With this work done, the sides could be snapped into place on the car body, and a coat of protective flat finish applied to everything, protecting both side and end lettering. Then the floor/underframe could be added, and I painted the kick plate under the door boxcar red.
     Next came light weathering. This car is supposed to have recently been reconditioned with the outside metal roof and new paint scheme, so it would not have been in service very long. Still, light-colored cars like this did show the dirt. I used my usual technique of acrylic washes, a process I like because I feel I have a lot of control. (For a full description of this technique, please see my two-part description under “Reference pages,” links at the far upper right of this post.)
     Once weathered, the car received my usual finishing touches: a route card over the left truck, and a few chalk marks. Here is the completed model.

I will surely take this model for display at the next Cocoa Beach meeting, which we may hope takes place in 2021, but possibly not until the following year.
     Even though it is a little embarrassing that I am only now completing the 2011 Shake’n’Take project, all I can say in my own defense is that I already had more meat reefers than my layout needs, making this project easy to postpone. Still, I did enjoy remembering Greg Martin in the process of this build. I am certainly among those who will continue to miss him.
Tony Thompson