Monday, March 11, 2013

Weathering Support Pillars on Containers

 
There are a wide variety of 40, 45, 48 and 53 foor containers available from a number of different manufacturers, including Con Cor, Walthers, Deluxe Innovations, Atlas and Kato.  The containers come in one color, white.  The support pillars need to be painted silver as in the prototype.  I had a a few dozen of these containers, and I wanted to bring them up to proper specs.  This was done through a "mass" masking  and painting assembly line as you will see in the following pictures.
 
 
 
I gathered all the white containrers and began a masking process to isolate the support pillars for a silver spray. 

I used the Tamiya 6, 10, and 18 mm masking tape to seal off the white paint from the support pillar portion.  In most instances, the 6mm masking tape fit the area between the outside pillar and the primary support pillar.  Add an 18mm piece inboard of the primary pillar, mask around to the other side of the container, and you've got one side done.  Simply repeat the process to finish off the container. 

If you have a quality spray gun, you need not mask off the center of the container.  Just make sure you have no overspray of silver on the central portion, or on the container ends. Spray at an angle away from the ends.   I have a Grex dual action which enables me to direct the spray only where needed.  If you are using spray cans, I would recommend masking the entire container, as managing overspray with a spray can can be quite difficult.

Close up of 48' container, masked and sprayed.  The paint spray stands are brass sheets bent into "holder" shape.  If your container is all white, it may also require masking a spraying off the roof and base.


APL 48' Container, masked and sprayed.



 
Finished Containers


Finished Containers

Finished Containers


You may have missed previous postings of my Doublestack trains, so here is where you can find them on YouTube:

 
http://youtu.be/vEDaIWOO2aw

http://youtu.be/tQ2jpX2ORx0

http://youtu.be/VQp-ypkt_RU

Thank you for viewing my blog.