must rolling stock be washed before alight weathering to the trucks and under frame, lower sides is applied? rambo1… Happy thanksgiving to all!
The answer depends upon how much the car has been handled. If it has been freshly painted and handled only with freshly washed or gloved hands, then washing is probably not necessary. But if it has been handled very much with bare hands not freshly washed, then washing the car is advisable. Otherwise, fingerprints or smudges are going to show up in your weathering, especially if you are using chalks for your weathering medium.
Good luck.
The problem with weathering most trucks is that they’re usually made from some type of engineering plastic, a material to which most paints don’t adhere very well. I’ve recently taken to “sandblasting” them, but using baking soda as the blasting medium. This gives them a slightly roughened surface to which paint and/or weathering seems to adhere better. Underbodies of many cars, kits and r-t-r, are often unpainted and might benefit from cleaning with warm water and dish detergent to remove any mould release agents. However, since these parts of the car aren’t handled much after assembly, I’m not sure that it would be worth the effort. I use mostly Floquil (solvent-based) paints for weathering and it seems to stand up well without pre-washing. For the lower sides, any decorated cars have already been cleaned before they were painted and lettered, so unless you’re eating finger foods while building your models, these areas should be relatively free of grease and oil.
With Floquil and other lacquer-based paints, I usually apply weathering colours thinned about 90% with lacquer thinner - minor grease and oil doesn’t stand a chance. [(-D] However, I use the same ratio of thinner-to-paint when weathering with PollyScale, but with water as the thinner, it doesn’t adhere well to an oily surface.
After the car has been painted and lettered, I apply a coat of Dullcote (occasionally semi-gloss for an almost new car), then weather the car with whatever methods are most suitable for the results I want. Unless the weathering was with chalks or pastels, I almost never Dullcote over the weathering, as I feel it gives too uniform a finish.
Here’s a car (one of three versions of the same car finished to represent it in various stages of its service) on which the trucks were blasted, then airbushed with the car’s colour. The wheels (both sides) and axles were brush-painted, then the springs were touched-up with a rusty colour using a brush.
Holy smokes…those are really good! Artistic, very realistic looking, restrained.
Hey, he’s Doctor Wayne - you eventually get used to seeing his mad skills. But still, he never fails to impress!
Thank you both for your very kind remarks [:$] and my apologies for my late acknowledgement of them: I’ve been away chasing trains with friends for the past few days.
Wayne
Didja catch any?
Got a few, including 19 trains within a couple of hours at Rochester PA, action at Wampum, Summit Cut, and East Palestine, some shortline action and this train with 8 locos on the head end:
Wayne