Weathering
I decided that I wanted to add a little light weathering to the locomotive to give it a more realistic appearance. I used a combination of techniques including airbrushing, weathering powers, and washes to create the effect I wanted.
To tone down all the shiny running gear I first sprayed all the rods with Testor’s dullcoat. I then sprayed the rods with a thinned down coat of Polly Scale’s ‘oily black’. This toned done the running gear, but now the rods all looked a little to uniform in color. I followed up by going over each of the rods using a 10:1 thinned wash of ‘grimy black’. The wash did the trick as it produces very realistic color variations when it dries.
After decaling I reassembled all the running gear and installed the motor and gearboxes. I left the micro-mask on the wheel tires to protect them from paint in the weathering process. I hooked up the motor and with the wheels spinning I sprayed the running gear and wheels with a very thinned mixture of Polly Scale’s ‘dirt’. I thinned the paint with 5 to 10 parts airbrush thinner, so each pass with airbrush only gave a very light coating, buy making multiple passes I could get the nice subtle effect I was looking for.
Here’s a picture of the locomotive on the test stand after the weathering effects described above:
Note the color of the running gear and light dirt effect on the lower portion of the tender.
Here’s another shot of the locomotive’s running gear:
The rest of the weathering effects were done using Bragdon’s weathering powders after the boiler was installed. I used various combinations of their sooty black, grey, white, and rust colored powders. Using a small stiff brush I applied the different colors in vertical streaks down the sides of both the boiler and the tender. Please see the finished photos later in this write-up to see all the final weathering effects.
Page 12 - Last updated April 25, 2004