hey, so basically, I have a lot of black hoppers that need weathering. I tried spraying them over with Krylon’s flat matte finish thing, and it really didn’t do anything. after reading the modeltrainsweathered.com forums, it seems like only real Dullcote is the way to go.
anyway, I’m having a hard time finding good color photos of black hoppers. i just spent a while going through tons of MR’s, trying to find a good example of a black, weathered model hopper, and I couldn’t find any good shots.
so basically… for black hoppers, how should they be weathered?
sorry if my post seems kinda unclear… the benadryl is really kicking now…
What I do is to overspray the entire hopper with a thinned weathered black or grimy black color to maske the paint looked faded. Then I airbrush the trucks, couplers and lower 1/4 (approx) of the hopper with a thinned earth or dirt color
Normally you weather a car with paint or something etc. and then spray it with flat finish to seal in the weathering. I guess just spraying a car with flat finish will kill some of the plastic “shine” but it’s not in and of itself weathering.
On a black freight car or locomotive, I like to use powdered charcoal over the lettering , just brush it on fairly thick and then wipe it off with a soft paper towel in downstrokes. It tones down the lettering from bright white to a dirty gray. Then I seal with flat finish, and come back with chalk after it’s dried and add a little rusty red and gray especially on the trucks. Unfortunately, chalk will dissolve if you spray it with flat finish. Some guys have reported success with spraying the car with flat finish or something and weathering with chalk while the finish is still tacky, but I’ve never tried that so can’t comment on it’s effectiveness.
Most black coal hoppers faded to a color more like the slightly off black that outdoor grills seem to be painted in. When new they might be a dark Mars black but as it loses the gloss it takes on a tinge of gray.
Greg, black hoppers are subjected to the same dirt and weather as any other cars, so use whatever colours and methods work for the other cars that you weather.
The suggestion about fading with airbrushed thinned black paint works well - I like to use black to which a little white or grey primer has been added, then thin it severely - at least 90% or 95% thinner. Then a bit of road dust or grime on the lower parts of the car will bring out some of the detail that normally disappears on black cars when viewed under typical layout lighting. I’d go easy on the rust effects, except on the inside of the car - coal is not only abrasive, it is also acidic.
There is one basic rule of thumb with weathering that I never violate and it is the opposite of what would be logical. The darker the car the lighter in color the weathering should be and the lighter the car the darker in color the weathering should be. On dark cars I tend toward dust and mud colors and on light cars I tend more toward grimy black as starting points. I think it has to do with the background color influencing the grime on the surface. On a black car the dirt is not going to be as dark since it is brown dirt for the most part. Spray the trucks and the ends of the bottom hoppers dust color and feather it out up the side of the car. The you can come back and very lightly spray a color like graphite ot grimy black over it but it needs to be subtle over the dust.
I tend to use 3 colors for the majority of my weathering: black, Harbor Mist Grey and Mineral Brown. In addition I may use a color close (typically a tad lighter) than the car color. Harbor Mist Grey has a warm tone to it, it shows up on both light and dark cars. Mineral brown has an color close to older rust (newer rust is more orange and old rust is more dark brown).
Using a limited pallete of colors also has another advantage in that it unifiies the colors of your fleet and makes each car less individual. Your eye sees more of a “train” than a “string of cars”. It also makes the clean car pop out more. The one clean “State of Maine” car will really stand out amidst the sea of brown and black cars.
