Weathering?

[DescendingSadly]

Hi Folks,

What's the best way to weather stock?

I have lots of loco's and multiple units I would like to weather, but mainly I have a set of HAA's that need weathering all over really.

Any help is appreciated.

[LNERandBR]

I find a mixture of tequniques makes for best results.

1) use an airbrush to spray roof dirt all over the model.
2) then spray the underframes with frame dirt/sleeper grime
3) you can then use some break dust clour on the underframes if you want but use it sparingley.
4) to get a streeky look take a cotton wool bud and soak it in thinners. Remove the paint you just applied on the bodysides in up and down motions. With pactice on diesel loco's you can replicate the streaks caused by depot staff cleaning the sides with a long boom.
5) add extra detail with the drybrush mentod. for example add oil streaks with black paint. And on diesels use dirty black around the exaust ports.

On your HAA's you could try a wash of dirty black all over first then use the airbrush to add frame dirt.

Mutiple units and coaching stock sides will be very clean due to mecanised washing plants. one tip is to mask off the sides to prevent overspray although in small amounts overspray along the bottom edge of the body can show fresh dirt being kicked up by the stock.

[WSR2005]

Personally, what I like to do is to use chalk pastels. Rub them lightly onto the wagon / loco, and then smudge the dust over it to give it a more worn down feel. Judge for yourself, here is an early example of my attempts with this technique.



Cheaper and probably easier to do than using an airbrush, but maybe not as realistic. Also, this might be better suited to older wooden stock like in my pic.


Tim

[phat2003uk]

One method that I found to be quite good is to light a candle and hold a plate at the tip of the flame to collect the soot. Then use a paintbrush and brush it where you like on the loco/wagon. The pic below shows what I achieved:

[LNERandBR]

That 37 looks Ok apart from the underframe needs to be weathered a brouny colour. Its the first part to get mucky. Also I think the roof could be mucker especially aroud the exaust ports.

[LNERandBR]

Here is an example of my weathering using the tequniques I discribed above:


Click the image to zoom in

[DescendingSadly]

Here is an example of my weathering using the tequniques I discribed above:


Click the image to zoom in

WOW!!

thanks everyone for your help, I will try all the methods.

How mush is an airbrush LNERandBR?

[LNERandBR]

How mush is an airbrush LNERandBR?

Now there's a question. I carn't remember

Mine is a Bager 200 single action airbush. It's internal mix rarther then external this gives better results.

You can get some cheep airbrush and it'll proberbley do the job but you'll be forever tweeking it and messing with it trying to get it to give a light spray as it seems to come all at once with an external mix brush.

[LNERandBR]

Just checked Mainly Trains which is where I got my airbrush from and their currently £53.00 although I recommend getting a colour cup as the bottle that'll come with the brush will need alot of paint to make it work. Colour cups are more reliable.

See Below

http://www.mainlytrains.co.uk/acatalog/by-badger.html

[DescendingSadly]

Had a go at the sut method, what do you think?

[LNERandBR]

I'd say a bit dark. Although the middle portion under the filler looks OK.

I think the soot method is more useful for applying detail to the weathering. Try using a wash of black first to apply an all over colour and then use your soot to make streeks and other details.

Also your streeks are going the wrong way. Work in up and down movements not side to side. Weather washes muck down not sideways.

Last time I weathered some tanks I used an allover wash first to dull down the colour of the tank body. Then I sprayed the underframes and lower tank sides with my airbrush then used drybrusing (simular to your soot) to create detail.

[DescendingSadly]

What would you recommend for the wash of black?

I don't have streaks on it anymore, I went over it with the same bursh and got rid of the brush marks, so now it just looks dirty.

[LNERandBR]

Enamal Paint is best. Railmatch and Pheonix do a full range of weathering colours. One of these is Dirty Black basically a grayish black colour.

You can use matt black if you don't have any of the above Dirty Black. Mix it with White Spirit or enamal Thinners. Then apply a liberal wash to the whole model. The exact mix is hard to describe but you want it runny enough to run into the cracks and crevises.

I also find that using a wash of colour on diesels creates a wet look wehere as the airbrush creates a dry look if that makes sence. Basically the wet look makes the loco look as though it's been raining on it recenty where as the dry look makes the loco look dusty and as though it's not rained on it for a whyle.

You want to vary your tequnique each time you weather something as you need veriety. If you do exactly the same thing each time you will end up with a mass of mucky loco's that all look the same and that is unprototypical. Weather acts diffentley on different things and you need to replicate this in your models.

The main problem I have is I build up a large number of items to weather then when I set to they turn out mainly the same. Where as if I weather a few today then a few tomorrow my tequnique will be differnt each time. Following the same steps but for example the mix of paint in the airbrush will be slightly different, the amount of thinners on the cotton woll bud will be differnet and in general many varaibles will be differnt each time.

[DescendingSadly]

Finally, me & my dad had a go at weathering a hopper tonight using your average Humbrol paint,

we will paint the handbrakes white and add various mucky marks to it, but do you like it? things to be improved upon?

[LNERandBR]

That looks like all over brown dirt.

Unfotunatly hoppers tend to go balck due to the coal dust could be the fact its in shadow tho.

The inside of the hopper needs some work. This would not be a bright gelleming silver. Although it will not have gone rusty. Use the dry brushing techique with some matt black in there. Not too heavy mind you.