Search for SP Freight Car Red in Rattle Can May be Over

[autocoach]

For a variety of reasons I can no longer use an airbrush. But as I need to paint my latest kits and repaint RTR blodges I have been looking for the last few weeks for a suitable spray can (rattle can) freight car red. My goal has been to come close to PBL Star Brand #30 SP-UP Freight Car Red and/or the brownish red color chart in Tony Thompson's massive tome on PFE. I have been conducting some tests documented on http://srandsp.blogspot.com/2018/04/more-on-sp-rattle-can-box-carfreight.html and think I have the winner. Tamiya Fine Surface Primer Oxide Red, Item # 87160-800 is a close enough match to both my color samples. Also the Tamiya sprays very fine preserving detail and drys quickly. As it is also a surface primer in some cases one spray may be all that is needed. I have yet to use it on an actual model but it is looking like it will work well enough.

The background is the FCR color in the PFE book and the Tamiya Oxide Red in the smaller spray sample.

I will add to this when I have an actual kit built that needs FCR paint. Right now the Westerfield SP B-50-15 is progressing very slowly. I may use a Tichy USRA Box Car kit as a test bed for an actual car when the winds die down on my deck and I can get outside to spray.

 

[tootnkumin]

Some of the Auto touch-up rattle cans have good colors, but they for the most part are solvent based, and sometimes hard to find in non-metallic.

 

[autocoach]

This is the latest result with Tamiya Fine Surface Primer Oxide Red spray can. The Tichy kit has been a test bed. Unfortunately there is not good match in decals for an SP B-50-12 so I had to use a Microscale 87-911 sheet which does not have correct original build dates. The car still needs a bit of work on the brake end and underframe before spraying a flat/lusterless coating and then final release to the active fleet. I will consider weathering as my layout setting is 1947-54 and this car would last have been painted in the late 1930's. In 1949 any roadworthy B-50-15's were rebuilt by the SP with steel sides and new ends. I went through at least 4 #79 drills getting all the holes drilled for the Tichy wire drop style grab irons. I also experimented with Grandt Line NBW's to complete the grab irons.

Anyway, I was really pleased with the Tamiya Fine Surface Primer Oxide Red but worried about a touch up color until today when I matched Vallejo Model Color 70.982 Cavalry Brown as an excellent brush paint touch up match within a few angstrom wavelengths of the Tamiya Red Oxide primer.