Now that all the parts are installed and the body has been sprayed to have a glossy surface, the decals are next. The kit's instructions show the overall schemes used by the Baltimore & Ohio railroad. I decided on the "Post War 13 Great States" scheme which was in effect from 1946 through 1955 (since I model 1950). I chose the lowest road number available in the decal sheet and the oldest construction date. Ultimately the type and placement of the decals was determined by the prototype photo on the home page of this web site for this model. I tried to follow that as best I could. I did several extensive searches on the Web to find prototype photos, and also used the photos that come with the kit to help narrow-down what was applicable and what wasn't for my time period. For example, the circle-T logo indicates that the car was part of the "Timesaver" program, but that program wasn't started until March, 1950. I decided to leave it off because the "Timesaver" program was run on dedicated trains, and so they would probably not be found as part of a PRR train.

Placing decals on the long sides worked very well. I followed the steps in the kit's instructions about how to apply the decals. I found that I had to apply more isopropyl alcohol. I eventually settled on dipping the brush directly in the alcohol, hit the brush on the inside of the bottle, and then dipped it into the mixture described in the instructions. This made it easy to move the decals around and get them to stay in the right place. The harder part was applying the decals on the ends of the car. I finally build a set-up shown in the next photo (all foam pads) to protect the details on one end while having a flat, horizontal surface on the other end onto which to place the decals. I had no decals tear or break on me, but I took my time and was extremely careful with them.

After all the decals dried overnight (it took me about three days of evening hours to apply all the decals), I sprayed a second coat of Testors' Glosscote over the model to protect the decals. The next day I sprayed a thin coat of Testor's Dullcote.

The next step is to weather the whole model. I started with the wheels and the truck. The next photo shows the tread on the wheels polished off. I am using the S-Helper Service AAR 70 ton friction bearing trucks (part #00001) for this model. It looks remarkably close to the trucks shown in prototype photos. The blackened wheel treads don't look realistic. I used my Dremel tool to polish off the material. I started with the softest disc and worked my way up until I got one that worked.

This photo shows the wheels' faces painted with Floquil "Rail Brown" (you can see the difference compared to the photo above). I got the tip from the April, 2010 Model Railroader magazine article titled "How To Weather a Diesel Locomotive" (pg 35). I used a micro brush to paint the face and it worked well.

The next two photos show the car just before the dreaded weathering session. Weathering a car makes me nervous (as it does a lot of modelers), because once the weathering is applied, there's no way back. I took these photos to remind me what the car looked like before I did the deed. :-)

I followed John Pryke's article in the February 2003 Model Railroader magazine which shows how he does his freight car weathering using an airbrush (including which paints, and car type-specific information). I decided to go easy on the weathering for this car. Hey, I spent a lot of time building it and I didn't want to "ruin" it with the last step! As can be seen on the next photo, what I did was airbrush a light coat of Polly Scale "Dust" in between the ribs of the car's sides. Then I airbrushed Floquil "Grimy Black" on the ribs. Next, a thin layer of dust was added to the underframe and the bottom edges of the car using Polly Scale "Earth". The car's ends received two "stripes" of "Earth" about where the wheels are to indicate dust deposited by leading and trailing cars. The last step was to airbrush Floquil "Engine Black" on the length of the car's roof to represent the soot deposited by steam locomotives. Compare against the photo above to see the subtle differences.

Conclusion
Well, I think that completes the project. I will add some light Bragdon Enterprises weathering chalk to represent rust on the couplers and the truck's side frames, and I am working on some crates to place inside the car, visible through the one open door. I left one door open and one door closed. Both were glued in with superglue at each of the four corners of the door, so that they can be popped loose in the future, if need be.

All-in-all, I enjoyed this project. The final result is very pleasing to me. I think Jim King of Smokey Mountain Model Works, Inc. did a fantastic job in creating this car. The kit was sometimes challenging to put together, and some parts were missing from the kit. The instructions were kind of all over the place, but about 95% of the key information was there. The prototype photos were very helpful, as were the decal placements and the painting and weathering tips. I would recommend this kit to anyone, and I will definitely be interested in any (applicable) future projects that Jim releases.

I spent 35, non-consecutive, days (of mostly evening hours) working on this car. Besides the kit, I had to buy the trucks, the couplers, the air hoses, the paint, and the finishing sprays. The wood for interior was not part of the kit, nor are included in the instructions. That was my kit-bashing "extra". I had the wood in my supplies so I didn't need to buy that. The most tedious and time-consuming parts of the project were preparing and installing the countless grab irons, and detailing the underframe. Since my layout is fairly high, I decided to do all of it, but most of the underframe parts may not be visible on lower layouts. The most difficult part was fitting and finally installing the underframe into the body. There is quite a bit of material in the corners of the body that needs to be removed for the underframe to fit. There is no information in the kit about the brake details. I later learned from Pieter Roos that the parts in the kit are the parts one can purchase from Grandt Line, and that the Grandt Line kit comes with instructions. It would have been helpful if Jim had included those instructions. Once one has built a number of freight car kits, or has purchased one of the Grandt Line kits, I'm sure it is easy to figure this out. I think, therefore, that Jim intended the audience of this kit to be the more experienced modeler, and not a novice like me!