I’m just fishing for ideas for weathering trucks of all kinds… maybe with an accent on trailers that ride piggyback trains. My era is 1980s but i don’t suppose that matters much. Location is West of Chicago… but intermodal can have fetched a trailer from anywhere so dust could be any colour from anywhere…
Your ideas please?
TIA
[:)]
Aside from the dust you could also have some black exhaust soot on the upper front corners and for a particularly older trailer some grafitti.
Weathering trucks is like weathering freight cars and engines. I use dulcote or any flat, clear finish first, I airbrush dust or dirt brown lightly from bottom up on trailers and from front tire wells to back of trucks.
I airbrush some oily black on front edge of trailers and along the top of roof from exhaust from tractors. I paint tires different shades of black, as tires age, they also fade. Same goes for mudflaps. Some times I use grimy black on one mudflap and black on the other, to look as one has been replaced.
Back doors weather differently, as trucks go down the road, the air swirls around the back, so more dirt, grime, dust settles on bottom halk than top. Chalks, browns, tans and some black should be worked in around door hardware. Sometimes I break or bend the back step on the trailer, as they get bet up in life also.
I use Micro-Scale decal set for trailers, it includes,trailer maker names(Great Dane,etc), lights, and cargo warning labels. I also sometimes just paint in tail lights.
Undersides are usually airbrushed a light coat of grimy black, about a 30/70 mix, paint to water. It brings out some details and looks about right for road grime.
Don’t forget a little brown spot here and there as trailers will rust, usually around the doors.
I hope this helps, Mike
Ok, being a trucker and model railroader, maybe I can give some ideas here. First off from my experience piggy-back and trailer-train trailers are not very well kept up as far as appearance goes and have dents scratches from loading and unloading on rr cars. Exhaust residue on the front right upper corner and along the upper right side as mention above. Dirty-muddy tires, odd colored wheels are not uncommon for these trailers. Last, rust deposits on the rear from water slinging up from the rail car carring rust from the rails and wheels of the rr car carring it. Try googleing “roadrailer”. Some interesting stuff there. Ken