The Atlas 36' wood reefer looks to be a close match to a photo I have of SRLX 3707. I has the general look; I haven't done measurements,but it has the same roof facia, 4-hinge doors, exposed cross-bearers, etc. It should have drop grabs, however, and six instead of 5...
The photo shows what I presume are yellow sides and red/brown ends and roof. I now have a pair of Sunshine decals for my pair of Atlas reefers, so I need to get painting. I'm assuming reefer yellow, not reefer orange, but I have a fair number of shades for the ends and roofs. My normal acrylics: Polyscale BCR, Special Oxide Red, Zinc Chromate, Roof Brown, Badger rail brown, and a couple solvent-based: Floquil ATSF Mineral Brown and Southern Freight Car brown. I'm happy to have a decent selection, and surveyed my other reefers for ideas. They tended towards oxide, but ran the gamut to brown. Whenever I get around to weathering, it wouldn't matter if I chose, say, Roof Brown vs. Rail Brown, but it would Roof Brown vs Zinc Chromate! What's something that's close to the color I'd see in the mid-late 30's? OH, and is the underframe the same color as the ends, or black?

These cars don't have separate sides, so I'll have to mask. Is it better to mask the sides and paint the ends and roof first, or vice versa?
Also, what was the range of numbers for the series of cars SRL X3707 was in? I have two cars, and if I numbered one say, 3745 in honor of Arthur Lee's birthday, and later found that 3745 belonged to a different series of reefers, I'd feel foolish. It's not wise to assume the series was 3700 to 3799, it could have been 3600-3899 or 3701-3750 or whatever... I also have a photo of SRLX 6505 that is an even better match, but it's in a decades-later paint scheme, and may have been renumbered, for all I know. SRLX doesn't show up on my 1935 ORER, of course...

Dean Payne

I have built 4 of the Sunshine cars in the yellow paint scheme. I use Polly
Scale paints as well. The Sunshine instructions say to use a mixture of 4/5
reefer yellow and 1/5 reefer orange. I used this ratio and am happy with
the results. For the ends I used Polly Scale box car red.



I painted the sides first and then the ends. I didn't bother with any
masking. Just be careful with the angle of your spray and you will get a
sharp edge between the colors at the corner of the car. Of course, some
items will need to be touched up with a brush, but the Polly Scale levels
well and you can't tell what was airbrushed and what was not. The edge of
the brake step near the side comes to mind as something that had to be
touched up.



I did mask the sides later to paint the fascia. This is an easy mask
without interference of detail parts like grab irons, cut levers, etc.. And
to anyone painting the red cars I will pass along this tip: Instead of
painting the fascia white, I used Microscale 6" wide white decal stripes. I
can never paint white properly and this solution worked out great.



Andy Cich