For years I have read about using powdered pastel paints and chalks to weather rolling stock and the latest RMC has another article about this technique. I have always wanted to give this a try but where do you find these things. I have looked for these at Hobby Lobby and other arts and crafts stores and when I ask the help about these, they look at me as if I had three eyes. The best I could do was an 8 pack of Crayola chalks with only a white and a beige stick that could be useful at all for weathering. Somehow, I don’t think the pink or pastel blue would give me the effect I want. Where can you find appropriate powdered paints or chalks for weathering projects.
Well they are just nuts. At Hobby-Lobby they are on the row that has magic markers, colored pencils, and charcole. They have so many brands and options it is hard to figure out which ones to get. You can get them in sets of different colors, in sets of the same color, and individual sticks. They seem to have bunches of oranges, yellows, browns (umber), and creams right now. I believe the autum look is trendy. If you can’t find them ask for “Earth Tone Pastels”.
Bite the bullet and spend $25 on a 12 color set of Bragdon Enterprise weathering powders. You won’t regret it. They’re magical. You’ll be able to do things unachieveable from using chalks.
I agree. I recently switched to Bragdon Weathering Powders (bragdonent.com) and they are the best I’ve used in over 50 years of modeling. You cant believe how easy they are to use until you try them yourself.
Bragdon and Bar Mills have smaller packs of four powders for around $10.00. That’s how i got started, liked them so much that I bought some of their larger packs.
Bob Boudreau
Another source besides Hobby Lobby and other craft stores, where I bought my chaulks which are very good. Buy billiard chalk, they come in 1/2 " cubes wrapped in paper and are a lot tougher than artist’s chalk. While working at a HobbyTown, USA store in Longmont Colorado I “discovered” that these work great and you can find it in most weathering colors as they match the many colors found on pool tables…yes this chain of HobbyTown stores carried billiard tables and I got to be one of the guys who put them together !
At any rate they are great for any model application and I use them on my military models in 1/35th scale for weathering the armor I build. Also you might try this technique… mix the powder with a matching color of acrylic paint and it will dull the color down to a very flat effect. This works fine for military flats, as I mentioned I have more than one model hobby which includes WW II Navy aircraft hanging form the ceiling in the now " Hobby Central " room.
My HO trains of many road names goes very nicely around the walls on 20"
wide benchwork . I generally dry bru***he chalk onto whatever model application I am currenty working on and it stays on very well, or you could apply the dusting of chalk onto freshly sprayed acrylic paint and then use a hairdryer set on low heat to set the paint, this is like having a poorman’s drying chamber, just be sure to ask the original owner of the hairdryer.
A note about acrylic paints… they are somewhat more managable than oil based and don’t smell as bad although they are not totally safe, as with anything associated with painting. They mix well with windshield wiper fluid ( blue tint ) or water and alcohol, airbrushing them is easier with practice and they hand brush as well. Drying time is faster and after using them mixed in with acrylic caulk that makes a good base for ground details when I use wrapping paper to form landscape by soaking the paper in a mix of caulk and paint color for a basic coloring. The old newspape
Question… once you get the weathering like you want it, can you cover it with a clearcoat, such as Dullcote, or will that mess it up?
The pastel sticks I got at Hob Lob are made by MUNGYO.(part # MP-12EP) 12 earth tone sticks. Same company makes a pack of 12 grey tones. These are fine for scenery and buildings.
Get the Bragdon or Bar Mills if your doing locos and cars.
Will,
I have never had to seal the weathering however I believe one could, I would strongly recommend you try this on an older piece of RR equipment to test the results. Also the advantage to using the techniques I suggested is that you can wash off excess weathering with water and go back to the original if needed.
johncpo
In my experience pastel chalks are not that easy to use, the results can be unpredictable when a top coat is added, but they can do certain things that a wash or spray can’t. For example- scrape a pile of bigger chunks off a black chalk stick and glue onto the model with some latex based semi-gloss around the couplers or other areas (switch points for example) where you would like a nice built up grease effect. A similar effect can be done with an earth tone around the trucks for a muddy look.
I haven’t used the Bragdon Weathering Powders, but I would imagine a product specialy formulated for the application would be a better choice than generic artist pastels.
I’ve found that the multicolored chalk assortment is in fact a good buy. You can use the blues and oranges for a faded paint look, or whatever color is close to the base color of the model you are working on. Even pink has a use- just look at an old faded red tank car for example. Don’t limit yourself to just “dirt” and “grime”. The world is full of subtle colors, and so should be your layout.
The Bragdon and Bar Mills weathering powders contain a built in powder adhesive that is activated by rubbing on the powder. They do not recommend overcoating with Dull Coat. These are specially made powders for weathering, they are not chalk products.
Bob Boudreau
According to the current RMC article, overspraying chalk weathering will make it disappear. They say it makes the chalk part of the painted surface instead of being on top of it like dirt.
Very cool, that certainly clears that up for me.
Thanks!
You can get pastel chalks from your local Wally World (Wal-Mart) in the crafts department. I used those makeup wands that women use to put on eye shadow. You can get a set of them in the HBA (Health & Beauty Aids department at, yep, you guessed it, Wal-Mart.
I just finished weathering an Athearn Car with Pastel Chalks before reading this thread. First, I would recommend using an older or inexpensive piece of rolling stock to practice on that. And you can get some good tips and techniques from Kalmbach book on Weathering You Model Railroad so that you combine chalks with different washes and maybe even the use of an airbrush. One thing you should be careful of when using chalk pastels is how you handle the piece you working on as fingerprints even old one can show up after an application of chalk – AKA Dusting for prints, but you can remove the prints by just cleaning the area or rubbing the pastels in with a little light pressure with a paint brush (dry). As far as the Dullcote concerns, make sure you have enough of the chalk applied to the piece as a the pressure from the spray can will undoubtedly blow some away. As far as making it part of paint as opposed to dust, well, if you don’t want all the time you spent weathering to end up on you hands when you set up a consist and then all over everything else you touch you should seal it with something.
Here’s another cool effect you can create with chalks. If you have ever looked at a dirty truck or, in this case, rolling stock you will often notice that some smart person will draw in the dust and dirt “Wash Me” or some sort of profanity or other graffiti; well, you can recreate this in HO scale simply taking a new toothpick, moistening it , and drawing these sayings in the chalk weathering. Now, seal the whole car with Dullcote and the graffiti will stay intact.
Sincerely,
Railfan2882
Where does one buy the Bragdon weathering powder? My google search showed the manufacturer, but none of the on-line places (that I checked) seem to offer it.
Jack,
here is a source for the weathering powder: http://www.discountmodels.com/mfgs_finishing_weathering.htm
Doc Brians also works. It’s available from Mircomark.com I like the color variety.
However I had trouble spreading it on evenly overtop my ages concreate paint. Luckily it washed right up with water. I don’t know if Bragdon is any easier or not.