I just purchased some Polly Scale Roof Brown and Railroad Tie Brown. I thought about weather the wheels of my Superliners, a few locos, and some freight cars. I can’t stand the shine of them any more. I was wondering if these are good for just about every frieght car that has roller bearings.
Do you also weather the backs of the wheel faces and the axles?
Thanks in advance.
Those should work well for the freight cars too. You can mix things up with a little oily black or some subtle rust to give some variety, I have don eth backs too but usually not the axles unless they are bright metal.
Modeler’s Choice (www.modelerschoice.com) make a nice little painting jig for both 33" and 36" wheelsets.
Ricky
Very good colors for weathering wheels. Also not a bad idea to add grimy black in on some of your mixes.
Instead of using my airbrush, I’ve found it easy and fun to create “washes”. I mix my various shades of acrylic weathering colors in a plastic egg. I “over-thin” them 40% to 50%. With my wheels facing upward inserted in a styrofoam block I use my #2 paint brush, dip it in the desired wash, apply on each wheel face and let capillary action do its thing. Dries in less than a minute and produces some very nice results, imho. Afterwards, I take each wheel axle out of the block, flip them around and do the same thing again. I can do 16 axles in less than 5 minutes.
High Greens [:D]
Modern roller bearings, with which Superliners, and all current rolling stock are equipped, don’t leak oil. The wheels on roller bearing cars weather out dry and red rust, toned down with some gray from dirt and dust kicked up along the track.
Friction bearing cars (which are no longer allowed in interchange) carried a lot of oil in the journal boxes. This oil tended to leak out and run down the faces of the wheels resulting in a black and oily look on the wheel faces. I use either grimy black or oily black paint to model that look.
Painting wheel faces (and trucks) to kill the plastic gleam does a lot to improve the looks of any car. I don’t bother to paint the inside wheel faces 'cause it’s hard to do and they don’t show much. I should paint axles rust red, but haven’t yet.
Metal wheels come thru with a chemical darkening process that looks OK as is. I don’t paint over it.
Roller bearing wheels will be way more orange or warmer brown than plain bearing wheels. Plain bearing wheels (except new ones) where stained with oil leaking out the seals at the back of the journal box. Roller bearings only do that about 20 miles before they fail. There are also automatic journal oilers that might squirt oil on the wheels.
Plain bearing wheels (“friction bearings”) were indeed much blacker than roller bearing wheels, sometimes coated with a half inch of dark brown-black gunk where dust adheres to the oil coating the wheel. Major nasty.
I use a brush to paint the wheels, front and back, along with the axles. Since most of my cars have friction bearings, the fronts are usually some version of grimey black, while the backs and axles are rust-coloured. I leave the wheels in-place in the trucks (and sometimes the trucks on the car, too), as this takes only a few minutes per car. When the car is weathered (usually using an airbrush), the trucks and wheels are on the car and get weathered appropriately - it helps to roll the car back and forth during the final step, which is spraying the “road dirt” on the lower extremities of the car, as this ensures that the total wheelface gets weathered.
Wayne
Wayne,
I know this is off topic, but is that white building in the second photo a model, or is it photoshopped. Looks good.
Sue
Thanks for the kind words, Sue. [:)]
The structure is the main station on my layout, and is situated in Dunnville. In addition to the station, the wing on the left houses the road’s Express business, with a Federal Post Office in the other wing. Company offices occupy the upper floors.
Here’s a sorta over-all view:
And the view from the Express end of the building:
The windows are ones left-over from the two Walthers Waterfront Warehouse kits used to build the P&M Languay factory, shown in the foreground below.
I modified most of them by removing the arched tops. The balance of the structure is .060" sheet styrene, including the roof, platforms, and all walls and bracing. I buy the styrene in 4’x8’ sheets, which is more useful for larger structures and definitely cheaper than from the LHS. [;)] As you can see in the third photo, the track is not yet ballasted, as I’ll need to remove all of the structures along the wall here in order to add some low-relief details where the streets meet the backdrop. I also need to add some signs and more details, especially on the platforms.
Wayne
Wayne,
Thanks for the other photos. The first photo angle looked to good to be a model.[tup]
Sue
I agree with Antonio’s approach. New cars still require a light coat of wheel rust. As soon as they leave the forge hammer at the supplier, they begin developing that rust patina. I also rust-up the back of the wheels and the outer most axle even on cars I’mleaving as “new”. On passenger cars, I also apply a light wash of grimy black to the truck side frames - it settles into the crevices and adds depth. Freight cars may also receive dust or dirt washes and chalks depending on the effect I’m going for.