Patching Out Trains

I know real railroads paint over the heralds/reporting marks or as in the case of Union Pacific "patch kits".
How does one do it on the model railroad? Do I just paint them over or use styrene, paint that and apply it that way? I have a few boxcars and some hoppers that I would like to patch out.

Even .010 sheet styrene will look really bulky, more like a placard than a patch of paint.
If you want it to look authentic , you'll just have to go ahead and paint it.
If you are new to painting, do some practice on some soda bottles or something, before attacking a model.
Since youre just doing a solid color you dont need an airbrush, just get a rattle can of the right color.
Get yourself some Tamiya masking tape and practice taping, burnishing the edges carefully to prevent paint from bleeding under around details.
I guess you've found the lettering decal sets you want? If not Microscale has everything you need, http://www.microscale.com/products.htm

here's some inspiration for you, I saw these at a prototype modellers meet last summer
http://i894.photobucket.com/albums/ac14 ... red078.jpg
http://i894.photobucket.com/albums/ac14 ... red060.jpg
http://i894.photobucket.com/albums/ac14 ... red052.jpg
rest of the show : http://s894.photobucket.com/albums/ac14 ... rs%20Meet/

Thank you for the help. I have another question. What about patching a car so the original herald bleeds through the patchwork? For example, if I patched up a Penn Central gondola for a leasing company how would I make the PC herald show through?

On the subject, before they were merged with Athearn. MDC made some of Railbox patches. I've seen H&S and RF&P versions. I think a few patches were done as part of the Trainman Line from Atlas. I have their Atlantic & Western boxcar which is a St. Marys patch.

Death Star wrote:Thank you for the help. I have another question. What about patching a car so the original herald bleeds through the patchwork? For example, if I patched up a Penn Central gondola for a leasing company how would I make the PC herald show through?

That's not something Ive tried to do, so others will have more to say perhaps.
I do know that some paints are transparent, notably Badger Model Flex. It takes several coats to get a good cover, so I guess simply applying one or two light coats with an airbrush might give you the desired effect .
Experiment with airbrushing technique would be required I think.

Death Star wrote:I know real railroads paint over the heralds/reporting marks or as in the case of Union Pacific "patch kits".
How does one do it on the model railroad? Do I just paint them over or use styrene, paint that and apply it that way? I have a few boxcars and some hoppers that I would like to patch out.

You could make your own masks and paint right onto the styrene.

You could also use "decal trim film" which is available from Microscale. It is a sheet of opaque color that you cut out and apply like any other water slide decal.

Microscale also makes some alphabet sets you can use to make reporting marks for your patch job cars:

http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/mer ... gory_Code=

Good luck!

-otto-

Death Star wrote:Thank you for the help. I have another question. What about patching a car so the original herald bleeds through the patchwork? For example, if I patched up a Penn Central gondola for a leasing company how would I make the PC herald show through?

Ever try dry brushing??. Light amount of watered down paint lightly applied (smeared/wiped over )with tissue paper or an old cotton cloth???.Leaving the outer-most parts of the herald untouched???.

"Ditto" on the mask-and-paint (if you're not too neat, it can add to the effect) and the "trim film" suggestions.
In addition to all his freight car weathering articles, I think Mike Rose might have done some patch jobs, too. You might find back issues of Railroad Model Craftsman with his articles. (I seem to remember a Model Railroad Index that I used to use for looking up specific articles, but I haven't been on that site in years.)
I'll bet Mike has done a lot of research about things like making former heralds bleed through, too.
I had a lot of "stencil" fonts in my decal collection, because it seemed to me that more recent car lettering/re-lettering jobs were more of a "quick-and-dirty" thing. Paint-out the old marks, stencil on the new ones.