I the July (2005) MR, they had an article on weathering freight cars in the transition era. I tried that method on a cheap, shiny boxcar that I got for free. I diluted Grimy Black with water and painted the diluted paint on. The results were great along the riveted ribs (of the boxcar). The only thing wrong was that in between the ribs the diluted paint dried unevenly and didn’t look to good. Any ideas on how to “fix” the bad looking areas? Thanks
You could use 91% rubbing alcohol to “wash” off the paint. Or gently sand the flat areas in a vertical direction to just take off the top layer of paint.
Dave H.
Do you have an idea on how I could weather the places where I washed off the paint?
If I accidentally get too strong or bad looking weathering, I mix up some paint that’s a close match to the car color, dilute it, and paint it on as a semi-transparent wash. It helps to read a little bit about the color wheel so you know how to make a color shift the direction you need it to go … like adding green to a redish color to make it more brown.
I’ll mix the paint until it looks good, then paint a dab somewhere out of sight (like the car underside) so I can see how well the color really matches.
The result often looks very nice and actually adds a realistic depth to the weathering – in other words, I take a lemon of a weathering job and make lemonade.
If you can’t get the paint to match exactly, don’t fret. Discolored, faded, or stained streaks on a paint job are not uncommon as a car gets some use, so you’ll often get some great effects, even if by accident.
So the key to subtle weathering with paint (as opposed to using chalks) is to also work with some paint that’s close to the same color as the car and to work with thin, semi-transparent washes of paint.
So that means if I’m weathering a BN boxcar (which I am), I use a BN green that’s diluted?
Yep, that’s exactly what it means.