Reworking a Bowser Small PS Covered Hopper

Reworking a Bowser Small PS Covered Hopper Reworking a Bowser Small PS Covered Hopper...
Bowser makes an excellent small Pullman Standard (PS) type covered hopper. It is practially perfect for the WM class it represents (car #s 5101-5200). Mine came decorated for #5123, but has the old circular WM logo on it. I have looked and looked and could not find any proof that this paint job survived into the Chessie Era (1972-86). I therefore decided to bring this car up to a paint job that I knew it had. This would require a rework of the car and changing the number to #5135.

It should be noted that Bowser does offer this car in the grey paint job with speed lettering. That paint job is quite common in the Chessie Era. It is the old circular logo paint job that looks like it never made it to the Chessie Era.

Below is a Dean Heacock pic of the real car I chose to model.

Dean Heacock photo

How to:
1. Buy a Bowser hopper with the old circular logo. Realize this is not an "in era" car for you and decided to rework it.
2. Apply Polly Scale Easy Lift Off (ELO) with a Q-tip to the side panels of the car. Let sit for fifteen minutes. Scrub with an old tooth brush. Repeat the process twice. The Bowser paint is really thick and this will require two applications to get it all off. Rinse thouroughly with warm soapy water. Set aside to dry.
3. Sand the side panels smooth. Rinse again, sit aside to dry.
4. Paint the whole car Polly Scale UP Armor Yellow.
5. Paint the bays Polly Scale C&O Enchantment Blue.
6. Brush paint the underframe black, see photo below for clarity. Take care not to paint any part of the top surfaces black. It should look all yellow from the top.
7. Spray the sides and ends of the car with Testors Gloss Coat. This will provide a good smooth surface for decals.
8. Decal with Herald King decals. I noticed the numbers on this sheet are too small, so I used the numbers off the H-141 sheet which are for large ACF covered hoppers. The rest of the decals came from XXX sheet.
9. Spray the car with dull coat.
10. Weather with oversprays of rail brown. Streak the sides with white weathering chalk. Seal the weathering with dull coat.
11. You are done, enjoy your "new" car.

Below is the car when I first finished with it. I added the dark grey boxes (simulating an overhaul), an ACI card and consolidated stencil decals in an attempt to make this car look like it had been around a while. But, since I can't confirm this circular logo paint job existed in the Chessie Era, I decided to rework the car.

Below is the car with the side panels stripped. The Bowser paint is quite thick, so it took alot of scrubbing to get to this point.

Below are the sides sanded and ready for painting yellow. Notice the top was never stripped.

Below is the car all yellow and ready for bottom painting.

Below is a shot of the bottom of the car. Notice the bays are painted C&O Enchantment Blue and the undersides of the frame were brush painted black. Once, weathered this will look good, it looks a little funny now.

Below is the car decaled and given an overspray on the bottom of roof brown. Up next streaking the sides and top.

Below is the car, complete and ready to ride the rails in a Chessie paint scheme.