Up till now I’ve used chalks to weather rolling stock. I thought I’d give the Alcohol/India Ink Wash method a try. I sprayed an Athearn Blue Box Car with Dullcote, let it dry and then applied a the wash. When it dried, the entire car was covered in a heavy white film which doesn’t rub off. It’s almost as though I had covered the entire car with a heavy white wash. In decorating terms if it had been wood instead of plastic, it would be called, “Pickeling.” I thought that the culprit might be the Dullcote, so I tried another car without the Dullcote. This time the wash did leave an amount of black residue as expected, but what was not expected was the fact that the wash weakened the color of the paint. It’s not that it took the shine off the paint, it actually seemed to attack the paint and take some of the color out. What in the name of The Wide, Wide, World of Sports am I doing wrong?
The alcohol actually will attack the paint and dullcoat thats why so many modelers use it to strip paint. I use it to clean off pad printing off of cars etc. I have never heard or seen anyone use alcohol qand india ink for weathering plastic just wood and plaster. I did however see and done weathering with thinned colored paints.
Well, I guess that explains that. The second car I did without the Dullcote doesn’t look bad; it actually looks like it’s been out in the sun for a very long time, but I wouldn’t suggest that any one use this method to achiece that effect. It would be too hard to control. Thank you for your reply.
Yep, dullcoat and isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) produce the white film. I use india ink diluted with water.
For weathering, I like to use a coat of dullcoat, then my chalk and then another coat of dullcoat. Sometimes another coat of chalk and dullcoat are needed.
Everyone keeps talking about india ink and india ink washes. Are we really talking about true ink here or something else ? Can anyone provide a brand, supplier. part number or anything else ? I assume this is the same india ink wash for rocks and providing darker highlights in cracks and such.
Arts supplies stores carry this very real ink that is as old as the hills…literally. I believe it has soot in it, but not sure. In any event, it is jet black, and excellent for doing drawings and calligraphy. It also happens to have numerous applications in the modelling world.
Anytime I over used Alcohol, (insert pun here), I sprayed the item with Dullcote and the film wemnt away. The mix works with plastic, alcohol and india ink. It is best done with a one part mix to 3-4 parts mix of alcohol in a spray bottle. Work the mix into the item to be weathered, then spray the Dull cote and you should be fine. Lance Mindheim covered this topic in a MR article a few years ago. Also email him through his company www.shelflayouts.com to reach him.
I know a professional cartoonist (mostly B&W line-drawing political cartoons).
He constantly complains about today’s India inks. Says the old formula (boiling gall-nuts) from 20-25 years ago was far superior to today’s “cold” made inks. He is always searching garage sales, secondhand stores and estate auctions for bottles of ink from that era.
Perhaps the ink formulas of today aren’t as useful for this weathering process.
Poppa
The ink’s not the problem, it’s the alcohol. I can confirm that a final coat of Dullcote will neutralize the white film.
I have used alcohol and india ink washes for years and it has given me great effects. I use it on plastic and as long as you don’t rub it, it shouldn’t remove the paint. I used different concentrations of the india ink depending on how heavily I want to weather it. India ink is not widely available so you might have to look around. I found it at a campus book store. I haven’t check but you could probably find an online seller.
I bought India Ink at Wal-Mart! In the crafts section.
To be honest I’m not sure what you are doing wrong. I can tell you from experience that alcohol and India ink has never given me any problems like you suggested. I have used, I believe, so many techniques that I am not sure where to begin. Besides chalk, now one of my favorite ways to weatherize building, rolling stock, etc. is to buy jugs of tempra pain (Black, brown, white), at Wal-Mart or Hobby Lobby, cover the object to be weathered with the powered tempra paint, then with a fine mist of water in a hair spray bottle, you have a truly weathered object; fine spray the tempra applied to the box car, for expample, then let it dry. It really looks good.
Now I have sets of cars with just the alcohol and India ink for weathering, and I do nothing but apply the alcohol/India directly to the rolling stock, nothing else, let it dry and you should have good results. I have never seen the wash attack a car or any other object that I have used it on.
Yard Master
WTRR
Alcohol over dull coat is actually a pretty popular technique for weathering faded paint. It works great on lighter colors like PC green, GTW blue, reefer yellow and such. If you have a box car with a silver roof, try it. Mask off the sides if you don’t want overspray on the car and spray the roof with dull coat (heavy coating). Let dry and hit it with alcohol.
A good web site with more info on using it is Mike Rose. http://www.mrhobby.com/fading.html
Dull coat is supposed to be laquer with talc in it and the alcohol brings the talc to the surface. And if you don’t like the result, just spray with dull coat again and the fading goes away.
Ok, so one more dumb question, how messy is it ? I would think that ink is harder to clean up than paint and if not careful would leave nasty stains to deal with if spilled. Am I missing something ?
I use India Ink for weathering my tracks,ballast and some rocks. I also didn’t know what India Ink was. When I asked around some stores they couldn’t figure out what I was talking about. I finally found it at Michael’s , a hobby store around here. Here’s a pix of it.Not too clear, sorry about that.
Also, you can buy alcohol or WATER soluable india ink. Both types seem to work OK.
The water soluable type is harder to find but should alleviate the while film / ruined paint issue. My local art supply store has some, you might try one in your area.
If done right, alcohol and ink wash over plastic models can simulate sun fading, pitting corrosion, and orange peel effects quite nicely. However, as you found out, it takes a bit of practice to achieve good results. For this reason, I always practice on scrap material until i feel confident enough to try it on an actual model. From experience, some of the “white frosting” can be remove by spraying the finish model with a second coat of dullcoat.
Here are a few shots of weathering using “dull coat /alcohol wash” seen around my layout:
The first pic shows this weathering method used on a plate girder bridge.
These next two pics show this method applied to the sides and roof of these freight cars.
Ballantrae Road - That is a cool sig pic. Nice flat car load. Are they actual small motors or models?
Terry