Perhaps I can prevent someone from making the same modest blunder I did
I have just completed a road on my layout – I used Walthers plastic concrete street sections — with curbing and sidewalks and with weathering and an asphalt patch made from a piece of Three Brothers roofing/street material (rather like a roof shingle) it looks very good. I also used the manhole covers and gutters provided, painted a rust color. I am quite pleased with the Walthers product. I might give their new asphalt street system a try.
I weathered the street with a charcoal stick rubbed in and softened with an old toothbrush and an old mascara bru***o simulate the dark streaks that oil and tires leave, and some colored chalks to give some variety to the shading, and needed to afix them with Testors DullCoat. However I had also drawn in cracks repaired with tar using a very thin black Sharpie. Those looked great, if I do say so myself
I was pleased that the DullCoat did not wash away the weathering chalks, as sometimes happens. However it turned the black Sharpie lines blue and softened them, so that instead of thin and precise black lines I had somewhat watery looking blue lines. I redid them after the DullCoat dried but they are now thicker than I would have liked.
Just a word to the wise. I had tried out each part of the project, from weathering to the chalks to drilling the hole for the plastic manhole cover, on a sacrificial lamb piece of roadway. I also practiced my tarred crack repairs on that piece. Of course what I SHOULD have done was try the DullCoat out on that scrap piece before spraying it on my actual project. I knew better but didn’t use my knowledge. And somewhere here on this Forum, years ago, someone had warned that “black” inks and markers are as a rule actually blue.
Dave Nelson
Thanks for the tip,
Sorry to hear about this. I am a long way from streets, but I will be working on them sometime.
Good tip, Dave. I, too, find that using Dull Coat is tricky business.
Thanks very much for the warning, Dave. I feel badly that all that painstaking work went smeared, because I am sure it was darned good! Won’t you consider posting a pic for us anyway?
-Crandell
Thanks for the info. I will be using the Walther’s system soon and was curious about how people were getting that "worn in " look.
thanks for the info… Do you have any PICS of your new project? Would love to see them…
Well my DullCoat mistake aside … a few more words about the street itself (I am not yet at the point where I can post pics – no digital camera for one, no scanner for another)
The Walthers plastic street system is very interesting – it has corners, driveways, road can be flat or higher in the center. I didn’t think I’d like it but I do. You could use it as is unpainted but it is slightly shiny and the color has a hint of purple to my eyes (under flourescent light that is)
I use spray cans for this kind of painting and weathering and do the painting outside in above freezing weather (except for the DullCoat itself which has to be done on site)
I found a brand of spray camoflage paints at Ace Hardware, in various flat tans and grays and found it to make fairly effective concrete color. I hold two cans at a time and alternate the sprays, to avoid an overly regular appearance (I use the same technique to weather rail for example, using flat browns and Ace red primers).
This may sound funny but I try to keep up a “cha-cha” rhythm (for those old enough to remember when that dance was popular) – it is “one, two, cha-cha-cha, one, two, cha-cha-cha”). Or, long long, short short short. So the two colors alternate in that rhythm. Long long short short short. So: long gray long tan, short gray short tan short gray.
This would be easier to demonstrate than explain but the end product looks like I spent time with an airbrush. You stand away from the work enough not to flood it with paint.
Dave Nelson
Yep, Dullcoat can do nasty and wierd stuff sometimes.
I’ve used it for decades on chalk weathered plastic models without a problem. Until one recent incident …
I had an Atlas Diesel I detailed and weathered, masked the windows and numberboards, then hit it with a coat of dullcoat.
Within a few minutes, a noticeable sag developed in the cab roof, with one spot sinking like some sort of sinkhole by almost 1/4". Yikes, that’s the first time I’ve ever had dullcoat do that in nearly 40 years in the hobby.
The only thing I could figure was the model had some sort of wierd stresses in the plastic and the dullcoat softened things enough the stresses were able to deform the plastic.
Fortunately, the warpage was in the middle of the cab roof so a heavy application of some putty and repainting the cab roof fixed it.
Joe that is very interesting, and similar to reports one hears that paint removers that guys have used with plastics with no problems for years have suddenly attacked the plastics in modern productions – I am thinking esp of Kato. I know of guys who are custom painters who ruined their customers’ Kato engines and business cars.
It would seem new formulas of plastics are being used. This may be a worthy topic for MR to address.
You know, if DullCoat would do this kind of deterioration reliably and predictably there might be some useful weathering possibilities for scale hoppers and gons, where dents and bulges can be a challenge to simulate.
Dave Nelson
I’ll have to remember this