I am still using chalk and I am starting like the looks of my cars. Not great but better.
I use a lot of back, then gray and rust looking bronw chalk. Black will not show up on a back steam engine. Any tips with PIC?
Cuda Ken
GRIMEY BLACK—>thinned down—>airbrush 20 psi—>in moderation.[tup]
No pics but I use primarily three colors of Floquil paint on my engines. I airbrush graphite from a fairly long distance straight down on the top of the engine and tender. The distance is important so the paint has a little tooth and is a little rougher than normal. This replicates the cinder fallout from the stack. On the running gear I will highlight the wheels primarily with Dust to lighten everything and so it can be seen better. I also use this on the sides of the tender passing down the side at about the height of the bottom of the tender. This also gets the tender trucks. Finaly I airbursh Antique white very lighty around the ashpan area. I come back immediately with a brush with a little solvent on it and steak it vertically. Works for me!
When in doubt work from the prototype:
There was a good article in (I think) RMC within the last year or so about how to weather a steam locomotive. If you have the magazines, flip through them to find it. I don’t have access to mine right now, so I can’t pinpoint it for you. As best as I can tell from looking through the back issues on their website, maybe September 2006?
Orsonroy, thanks for the PIC I have saved them and around say 70 others.
My first project will be a broken Tyco. I am shooting for some thing like this.
It will be on a abaonded (spell check) spur and over growen. I bought some stuff of E-bay that is a liqued (spell check again) that will make it look like rust. Seller stated it will rust paper!
Well time to lay some rails!
Cuda Ken
This Locomotive was painted using Floquil’s Grimmy black. Once dry, I “dry-brushed” it with Floquil’s Old Silver in order to highlight the cast-on details.
Bob grech - really nice effect there. Never heard of dry-brushing with silver, but your results look good. I get the same exposed cast iron “look”, but it’s usually from side-swiping/run-away rear-ending collisions…[(-D]
Just remember folks, no matter how good your layout lighting is, everything looks darker inside. So any weathering will help pop out those details that you paid for.
Hi,
Black paint on a steam engine model will look odd, at least that is what I have found. I prefer to re-paint RTR engines with Weathered Black and work from there.
About a year ago I did a weathering a steam engine post on my blog, it can be found here…
I cover the process I use step by step.
The black fades so it tends towards a grey.
Soot collects on the top and grime/dust on the bottom.
Oil and grease drips/splashes from the running gear.
Off topic weathering note: Steam era track will have grease marks along the ends of the ties because they used steam engines with all the lubed portions outside the rails and plain bearings with oil that were outside the rails. Modern track will have a grease mark just inside the rails from grease leaking out of the gearboxes on the diesels and nothing outside the rials because the equipment uses sealed roller bearings.
I have seen interesting results with adding a little bit of blue to the black paint for a well maintained engine, one that is a profitable road in its prime where the engines are wiped down after every trip and adding alittle bit of red to older engines, to give the black a "warm’ cast of hot metal and a slight hint of rust.
There will be rust around the smokebox, there will be calcium deposits where steam or water leaks (whistles, blowoff cocks, popvalves, steam exhaust for compressors, dynamos, etc).
I personally like Harbor Mist grey for weathering, it has a warm cast to it.
Dave H.
Excellent tutorial and website, Tim.
Mike