I'm getting to the point of wanting to weather some of my Diesel Locomotives. What are some good techniques for weathering the trucks and fuel tanks?
i use pastel chalks, that way if you don't like it you can redo it. it also adds more of the grime effect that airbrushing sometimes hides.
Drybrushing with PollyScale acrylic Grimy Black will work pretty good to give the trucks a realistic base coat. (Pollyscale acrylics are water soluable, easier to clean up and/or remove if you want to do-over). Painting the trucks also gives chalks/weathering powders some tooth to hang onto. Be careful of getting chalks/weathering powder inside the trucks and inducing excessive friction, especially in the needle point axles. If I do want to do chalks/weathering powders, I disassemble the trucks and take the sideframes off. Here's a good website on dis-assembling and re-assembling Kato/Atlas locomotive trucks - it'll help you make sure that if you do dis-assemble, you can safely get it apart and back together: http://mysite.mweb.co.za/residents/grela/atlaskatotruck.html He says: "Please note, however, that one should be be very careful with the trucks since incorrect reassembly will lead to binding wheels and very poor loco performance. So unless you're certain that my notes are clear enough to help you through this, don't disassemble your loco trucks! I added a few pictures to help clarify things." Thx to Andre Kritzinger of South Africa for this web site! To save time, I tend to do paint only on the trucks. At a base level, a dry-brushed coat of of Grimy Black by itself dry-brushed on the trucks and fuel tank works pretty well: (I used Bragdon Enterprises weathering chalks on the shells). Hope this helps, good luck and keep us posted.
I start with a coat of grimy black to cover up the shiny nylon. That gives the powders something to hang on to. This is AIM weathering powders over Polly-Scale grimy black: ATSF's ballast tended to be a reddish-brown basalt, and lots of dust at speed; hence the typical brownish color. Your ballast color, speed of operations, use of sand, etc. will affect the color a lot. A good time to REALLY study the pictures.
It's good to see some good weathering on these locos. All too often we tend to want to keep our locos in the shiny new colors, and I feel that really takes away from the real world look that these units should look like. Thanks for posting the pics.
I haven't. Everything I read that was posted said that application of a top coat tended to make the powders 'dissapear' into the surface. The AIM stuff at least hangs in there pretty good without it. If you had it on an area that was really being handled a lot I think it would be a problem, but the trucks aren't. On one model where I overdid it I got a wet stiffer paintbrush and just cleaned it all off, so if you are afraid to try I've just removed THAT issue.
Variations Are Good I would only add that variations are good: more chalk on one engine; more airbrush on another; more pristine on another. It is a problem I always have with my weathering, i.e., after I weather my engines, they all look like they were weathered by the same person. :sad: It is like mixing a salad at a salad bar; it's sort of personal, you know. ATSF Arizona: I concur that John Kritzinger's website is one of the very best for how-to information. BTW, John is a member of TB. I haven't seen him post, though.
You can control the shinyness by how far from the surface you hold the air brush. If you are about 4 inches away, some of the paint will dry before it sticks to the surface, creating a bumpy surface (dullcoat).
