KCS Weathered White Motors

[Santa Fe Sammy]

Here is a little project I completed a few weeks back. For those of you that know me, Don’t worry, I am STILL a Santa Fe Modeler!

After some convincing, I talked a fellow Tulsa, OK and KCS modeler into letting me weather some of his early 1980’s era locomotives.

Of course, those of you that know, the KCS used a bright white paint scheme during that time frame. The white color shows all sorts of dirt, mud, soot, rust, and ANY other darker colors for that matter. The pictures are pretty much self explanatory.

This was a really fun project that I did assembly line style with my airbrush and finished up with dry brushing other various paints a few days after the airbrushed paints dried. Everything was sealed with some flat finish.

I did learn that weathering white wasn’t as easy as it looks! But once I got the paint and thinner mix dialed in, it was off to the races. My theory is to use as many light passes as it takes instead of a few heavy passes.

Here is one of the subjects – SD40-2 686.

Before:



After:



Here’s a before group pic:



And here’s the after:



And here’s the main gallery with before and after pics of several of the locos:

www.pbase.com/sammy1974/kcs_white_motors

Thanks for looking!

[EMDX6043]

Nice job. That little geep has some character!

[annarborfan]

Nice work, I got the 683 on the bench right now with some real heavy weathering.

[deez]

Wow!!! Awesome job Sammy!! You got skills thats for sure!!

[Deleted]

Nice work.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using proboards

[Santa Fe Sammy]

Thanks, all!
This was a fun project and it's proof that it doesn't hurt to do things out of your normal comfort zone.

[santafemikie]

Hi Sammy,

I really like what you did with the "Great White Fleet". They look terrific! I think weathering is difficult because you can ruin quite a bit of work with just a few minutes of work. That said, I also believe everything should have some weathering and to different degrees to be realistic.

What is a comfort zone? I'm terrified any time I pull out a knife, saw, paint or airbrush. It usually doesn't stop me for too long. The more I find out about things I thought I knew(RR's, locomotives, rolling stock, etc.) I realize that I really don't have one.

Mike

[jaybrooks504]

I really like your white fleet. Back in the 70,s some of the white KCS engines had big black KCS on the side and I tried to find decals for the black KCS only to find out the red faded to black. I wish I had some pictures. We actually thought KCS had painted the black KCS because it faded to black so evenly

[jaybrooks504]

I really love that GP-7 !

[m a y o r 79]

Very nicely done. I agree the geep turned out great!

[icghogger]

You got some mad skills, Sammy!!

[Santa Fe Sammy]

Thanks again for the kind comments, guys!

ir1799,
The owner of the motors really likes them, and I'm happy to report that the little Geep is his favorite!

[philiph]

HAving grown up around KCS in the 1980's I'd say you captured the look quite well. If anything, you could have done a couple of those locos a little heavier.

Don't suppose you have any in-progress shots?

[torikoos]

nice work indeed, care sharing your techniques and tools a bit more, lets say how did you do the geep, since that's everyones favourite , reading these posts?

Thanks, Koos

[Jack Napier]

Nice to see some KCS models for a change - we don't have nearly enough on this forum. Great job!

[Santa Fe Sammy]

Philip, Thanks for the kind words. Sorry, no in progress photos - just before and after.

Koos, Technique is pretty straight forward on all the models, first thing I did was mask off the grills and shoot them with a heavy coat of flat black with my Badger airbrush. After the masking was removed, I shot the whole roof with several passes of soot until it built up enough to my tastes. Light coats were the key. Shot the underframes with a several light coats of a thinned mix of soil and dust colors. After it all dried for a few days, I went back over things with some thinned water based paints in several dirt & rust colors. Used Testors gloss black for fuel spills on the fuel tanks. Sealed it all with a few thin coats of dull finish. Of course, the little Geep stands out since it got more attention than the others with more detail work with the brushes.

Thanks Jackrabbit! Cool avatar, BTW!

[torikoos]

Thanks very much Sammy,

It does look very convincing. Next time you do one, perhaps a few progress shots?
It's great to be able to see the transformation step by step.

Koos