Accurail #80792 Wescott & Winks 40' Wood Reefer

I purchased this Accurail kit several years ago on another business trip that included a stop a Eastside Trains in Kirkland, WA. There were several versions of this wood reefer on the shelf, decorated mostly for PFE, MDT, and other well-known carriers. I didn't want to renumber the car, so I got one I knew wasn't on the club layout. 

Here's the car body straight out of the box.

I started with the underframe and applied washes of rust, dirt, and railroad tie brown. I generally just dip the brush into the color, and thin the color in a drop or two of water. That's enough for one pass. While the blotches of color and brush marks look quite terrible at first, after several applications, the blotches combine to translucent layers and create a very nice and natural color effect. At the very end, I apply a thin dusting of Pan Pastels Raw Umber Shade to pull everything together.

For the metal roof I started with a wash of light rust, focused on the ribs and crevices. When that was dry, I cut off the molded grab irons and stirrup steps and replaced them with painted Tichy grab irons (I need a finer drill for smaller holes...)

I left the molded ladders intact, because the replacement ladders I have are very finicky to deal with and seem too fragile for an operating car.

I followed the rust wash on the roof with several layers of Pan Pastels Burnt Sienna and Raw Umber shades. I toned down the car sides a bit with a Pan Pastels white shade and a light dusting and streaks of dirt still on my small deer foot brush. I'm very pleased with the overall result.

I did make a big mistake and while dusting the car side hit a spot I had painted white earlier. The pigments stuck to the slightly tacky paint clearly bringing out the outline of the paint. I made it worse by dabbing over the spot, and ended up with a nice round dark splotch on the white car side. After that I called it a day yesterday evening, and let the car sit overnight.

Today I tried fixing the blob, scratched off some of the paint and pigments, and tried to hide the mistake with white shade and dirt. This created some white splotches on the roof, which I thankfully could mostly wipe off. I could not fix my mistake 100% without having to start over on the car, but at least it's not an ugly round splotch anymore. 

I still need to add a tiny dab of paint to hide the oversized drill holes.