Hello all,
I have a Tyco-kit wooden water tower from the early 80s made by Pola. I would like to weather it but I don’t know how to get the right effect. The barrel is molded in orange plastic. Specifically, I’m wondering how to get that dark “streaked” look of old tanks. Would I paint the bands separately with rust and then try a wa***o make it look streaked or the other way around? I’m just guessing so any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Toby
Usually, you start with the dark wash (India ink in isopropyl alcohol, or thinned black/grimy black paint) to darken and tone down the whole structure, and then add the ‘details’ like streaks, rust etc.
I would paint it first using flat finish paints to get rid of the plasticy sheen and slight transparency it can have, then add the washes, and finally a matte fini***o seal it.
Paint the tank your preferred color–depends on the railroad. Paint the bands black with a little rust. An ink wash is a good way to get that streaked look, but that should be done after the coloring of the tank itself and its details are done. Painting colors over a wash will just cover the wash entirely.
One thing that most kits miss is a way to get water up into the tank–if the base is enclosed you don’t have to worry about it, but for open-frame bases it is easy enough to use a spare bit of sprue or leftover bit of plastic or metal tubing to make a pipe that goes up into the tank.
Water towers typically have foliage growing under them–they tended to leak a bit, and it’s a nice shady spot.
I noticed that on older tanks from the late steam-era period, the woodstarted to sun bleach, giving the whole tank a strange weathered surface. This effect showed up in several color photos of NKP water tanks, and I tried to capture the effect on one of the tanks on my layout.
I started by painting the wood supports grimy black, and the roof steam power black. I then painted the entire tank Polly Scale dirt. Once the paint was dry I drybrushed the entire tank with a layer of PS oily black, very lightly near the top, but completely covering the tank on the bottom. I only painted the tank with down strokes, and the tank bands helped break up the oily black realistically. Once the oily black paint was dry, I touched up the bands with black paint, the turnbuckles with rail brown, and added a layer of Dullcoat. I really like the end results, and it captures the look from the photos well. Give it a try!
K’s book on engine facilities has a discourse on this type of thing. I personaly would paint using enamel base color - such as Yellow, or a mix looking like “wood”. Then I would use a thin wash of what ever shade of grime or “faded” paint you wanted. The bands can be marked using felt tip marker.
Thanks for the tips, everyone. I was wondering how I could achieve that unique old water tower look. I think I have a pretty good idea how to approach it now. As always, I appreciate the great support on this forum [:)].