I’ve seen where a mixture of India ink and water is used to weather structures, can this same be used to weather landscapes, Mountains etc, and what is the formula for this, Thanks in advance!
The formula for India Ink and water weathering solution is:
India ink
Water
You want enough ink in the water so it is dark in the crevices when it dries. You can also use India ink and water.
Dave H.
I use India ink and alcohol. Use just enough ink to achieve the color you want.
I use India ink and alcohol, with as little water in the alcohol as possible. Check the lable on the bottle. I use 2 drops of ink to an ounce of alcohol. You can make more than one application if need be. Same technique works well with rust in seams. Don’t forget to spray a seal coat after application.
Randy
I’ve read articles that describe the ratio as 60:1 or thereabouts, but I personally am not going to measure out 120 drops of water or alcohol to 2 drops of ink. I figure a film can mostly filled with alcohol should get 1 or 2 drops of ink to be about right.
Stupid Question: So where do I buy India Ink???
Grand&Toy (if you can still find one) or Business Depot / Staples should have it. If not, maybe a more “specialty” stationery store.
Andrew
Thanks Andrew. I will try Staples. I guess I didn’t know that you could buy ink anymore except in cartridges for ink-jet printers.
You can also try “Micheals” or any art supply store.
If you mix with alcohol, be sure that you put the “NO SMOKING” sign on, and be careful around the furnace & hot water heater too!! [:0]
I just found some at Wal-Marts in the craft section, tried it with a alcohal micture on my mountains and what a difference
Glad it worked for you!
Andrew
This may sound like a dumb question but are you guys talking about rubbing alcohol like you get at the drug store or is there another kind you use? Thanks a bunch.
Bob:
There are no more dumb questions: I’ve already asked them 
Yes, we are talking about rubbing alcohol, only because of the relative cost and amount of water. Drinking and rubbing alcohol are identical except for the “denaturant” and water content.
Look for rubbing alcohol with the highest content of alcohol and lowest content of water, at least 96% alcohol. The reason to avoid water is that it raises the grain in wood, dissolves paper and weakens plaster. If you want, you can use distilled water and alcohol washes with plastic kits if you are worried that alcohol may remove or mar the paint or weathering effects. Always test a small unseen area if in doubt.
Randy
Randy:
Thanks for the info. I appreciate the help.
Bob
Hi,
A couple points…Yes you can use India Ink and alcohol on scenery. Dave Frary recommends it in his scenery book (Kalmbach) and in his videos (Micro Mark or direct at http://www.mrscenery.com/). He gives you mixes for this and also for various scenery colors and washes. Dave’s “system” is all water based, no solvents.
As for the mix of alcohol and India ink, there are specific ones I’ve read but I just do it by eye as whatever achieves the results you’re satisfied with is “good enough”. One thing I want to mention which I read somewhere a few years back and never seem to hear or read when this subject comes up – the vapors from alcohol are combustible and they are heavier than air which means they travel along the floor. The air intake for gas fired HW heaters and furnaces is at or near floor level in our basements, which so many times is the location for our modeling activities, so as my old Pappy used to say, “A word to the wise should be sufficient.”
India ink should be available in many places. Office supply stores, certainly, but I have even seen it in the office supply section of stores like Osco and Walgreen drug, as well as department type stores like K-Mart, Wal-Mart, etc.
Finally, I have used the mix to weather some freight cars and in my impatience have discovered that you can force it to dry quickly by playing a hand held hair blow dryer over the piece of equipment. One thing I learned the hard way, and years later only discovered the fix for…putting the alcohol over a car sealed with dull coat will dry to an almost white, moldy looking finish. I went nuts trying to “fix” the look of the, what I saw as ruined, custom painted and lettered car I har purchased, and was barely satisfied with the result. Just found out in the past year, from weathering “great” Mike Rose, that the fix is to overspray with dull coat again, and it clears right up. Having said that, I haven’t tried it but have read the same from others since.
Ta
Paul,
The “fix” to clear up the whitened DullCoat does indeed work. I washed a roof with my india ink / alcohol mix after DullCoat - no problem until dry! It does give the “moldy” look you describe. Fortunately it is “reversible” with another coat of DullCoat spray.
Andrew
Has anyone tried using various colored inks to get weathered effects like old paint undercoats. I have thought about trying it to hint at older layers of paint under surface paint on structures. Any ideas?
vsmith,
Have not tried this, but hear it works very well.
- Paint your base coat (what you want to “show through” as old paint").
- Put rubber cement on sparingly, and at random.
- Paint with “top” coat.
- Rub off cement, taking top coat with it.
- Looks like peeling paint, with “old” paint showing through.
Good luck!
Andrew
One thing I did on the old layout…
But first a little background info. I model the CB&Q in 1969. Prior to the late 1950’s, the standard color of the prototype for structures was kind of a boxcar red color the Burlington called mineral red, with a greeni***rim color. In 1958/59, the standard structure color was changed to white on white (boring!). So the railroad had to start painting white over the old structures.
On my yard office building and also on a couple other rr structures, I figured that after ten years there would be some fading, etc. on the new white paint over the darker color of the mineral red, and the white may not be covering the darker color all that well. Probably be time for another coat of the white by that time.
Anyway, on those buildings I painted them with a can of cheap 99 cent “red” primer I got at the local Wal-Mart store. I let this dry well over a few days. Then I took a can of cheap white spray paint from the same store. I let this dry for awhile while I went and got some, IIRC, turpentine or whatever paint solvent/thinner I had in the garage at the time. I dipped an old toothbrush in this stuff, shook of most of the excess, and then scrubbed the recently painted white building walls. This is sort of a trial and error thing, but the desired result was achieved - the white paint indeed looked somewhat thin with a hint of the “original” color kind of bleeding through the white. Here and there, a too aggressive brush stroke took of a bit more of the white, and then some of the actual red beneath was exposed. I tried to keep that look to a minimum, though, as the imagineered part was that it had only been about 10 years since the white paint job
I have tried this and it works pretty well. I came up with a quicker, “cheater” version though that I feel would look fine on at least some background structures. Take your painted structure and then a paint brush with a small amount of what the old paint color is supposed to be. Then just gently jab this old color here and there on the model. Don’t go nuts but again this is one of those trial and error things. If not sure, try it on the backside of the model where it will never be seen. If you don’t like it, no harm done. If you do, you have just done your worst work in an area where it won’t be seen! Now that you have that one side experience under your belt, you can do you better/best work on the rest of the building that WILL be seen.
Have fun with it!