Painting and lettering a brass tank car

In a previous post, I discussed some 1920s waybills from the Coudersport & Port Allegany Railroad, all of them for shipments of the Gray Chemical Co. of Roulette, PA. This company and the railroad that served it survived past my modeling year of 1953, so I wanted to take advantage of the fine decals for a tank car of this company, offered by K4 Decals (see their tank car range at: ttps://k4decals.com/collections/tank-car-decals ). That previous post can be found at this link: https://modelingthesp.blogspot.com/2024/08/waybills-part-116-early-prototype.html .

I dug around in my stash of tank cars, both kits and various brass cars I’ve collected, and came upon a nice Overland Models brass 8000-gallon AC&F car, catalog number 3130. It’s shown below. I don’t know for sure that the Gray Co. cars were built by AC&F, which this model represents, but decided to take a chance on that. The alternative, if the Gray cars were built by General American, would be an undecorated Tangent 8000-gallon car.

A more serious issue is that it is a typical riveted tank, but most if not all of the Gray Chemical tank cars were aluminum, and such tanks usually were all-welded aluminum, once aluminum welding was established. Before that time, though, aluminum-lined steel tanks were built. I decided the model could represent such an older car.

Obviously with a fully constructed brass model, no additional modeling was needed (with a minor exception I’ll come to). I will just show the steps I follow for painting and lettering a model like this.

My first step was to carefully wipe down the model to remove any oils, using paint thinner. I then sprayed the entire tank (above the bottom sheet) light gray. The strategy here was to paint the gray tank and not worry about overspray onto the frame, then carefully mask the upper tank that would remain gray, and spray the underframe, trucks and bottom sheet black. Here’s the first step.

Next came the masking. I have come to strongly prefer Tamiya tape for any modeling tape needs. It’s flexible and can be made to fit over projections and around corners; it sticks well and never allows paint to bleed underneath; and it comes off cleanly when you’re done without ever lifting any paint. I taped all of the tank above the bottom sheet, and left the ladders outside the tape.

The flat black was then applied, allowed to make a good start on drying, and the tape stripped off. Nearly everywhere, the separation line was sharp and correctly located. Of course, a few minutes work with a brush would correct any errors. In the photo below, you may notice that the brake wheel has been removed. It struck me as undersized, and that I should replace it. 

I wondered whether to paint the handrail black. Looking at Ed Kaminski’s fine book, Tank Cars, AC&F, 1865–1955 (Signature Press, 2003), and concentrating on tanks with light tank colors built during the 1930 to 1950s, handrails in body color, or in black, were about equally frequent.  I decided to stay with body color, but leave the ladders black. I can always hand-paint the handrails if a prototype photo surfaces showing that feature.

Next came decals. I used the nice K4 decals as provided, with many lettering groups already assembled on the decal sheet. Only issue I could mention is that the company emblem seems oversize; it barely fits on this 8000-gallon tank car, which was indeed the prototype size. An option would be to also buy an N scale sheet for a better-size emblem. Below you will also see the new, unpainted brass Cal-Scale brake wheel attached to the brake staff. (You can click on the image to enlarge.)

This completes the main tasks with this model. Kadee couplers were then applied, and the car was weathered. This was by my usual method of washes made from acrylic tube paint (see “Reference pages” at the top right corner of this post). I included some spillage on the done. Note also there is an “empty” placard on this side of the car.

Now to make some waybills for the Gray Chemical Company’s acetic acid, and this car can begin work on the layout.

Tony Thompson