Dakota Modelers Group

Tag: diy

  • Layers of Detailed Weathering

    OVERVIEW:

    I began this project to try something different. The subject is a new old stock HO scale Walthers well car kit from 1992. This is definitely different for me since I don’t model any intermodal traffic.

    MY PROCESS:

    I got this kit and started assessing it and how it should look based on prototype photos. When I had looked at a bunch of images (what felt like thousands) I began assembling it and taking time to let the plastic weld and CA cure fully before going too far and risking damaging a part.

    I weathered the trucks and wheels first. Added just a touch of rusty iron paint to the molded springs for contrast and some black Tamiya panel line accent was added in the crevices to darken them. I also painted the molded brake chain with the same rusty iron color.

    Since the brake wheel on some of these was orange I mixed a faded orange color and dry brushed it to give the illusion of sun fade.

    While the walkways were on the sprue it was an opportune time to highlight them with Vallejo dark gray model wash. This really brought out the tread detail. A final application was be done prior to sealing everything with flat clear.

    WHEN PLANS CHANGE:

    I chose to begin on the car’s underside since I decided not to use the weight that came with the kit. This was not my original plan, and in the photo below I had sprayed the weight a dark flat brown and traced the car body out with an idea to cut the slots in the metal. The end goal changed to model a more prototypically accurate car with two 20′ containers, which is where plan to weigh the containers came into play and to maintain the see-through well.

    I used AIM Dark Earth to darken everything and create a base layer of streaks. I followed up with Tamiya brown panel line accent and topped it off with a drop or two of black. Creating the streaks was straight forward, a clean cosmetic wedge was perfect to drag the grimy fluid across the surface leaving the horizontal streaks.

    MY PROCESS CONTINUED:

    Once the underside was dried (about 16 hours) I started by adding some small rusty spots on the air reservoir and added some dark rust spots on the ends, below the walkways. I left these as is for now and moved onto the brake wheel side.

    I used Tamiya brown panel line accent along all the hard edges as a base color to blend into. When mostly dry I came back with a 1/2″ wide x 1/2″ long flat brush to apply some Dark Earth powder by AIM along the lower edge of the car side. Doing this helped blend in the underside.

    Working in an upwards motion I pulled the powder up the side. When the color looked right to me I took a cosmetic wedge with some of the brown panel line accent wash and drug the damp edge down to create the streaking effect.

    I let this dry for about 4 hours and came back to apply some Tamiya XF-9 and  -10, Hull Red and Flat Brown respectfully. Using a Microbrush tip without bristles works well to apply small dots and smears of paint to the car as rust spots. I then use a clean cosmetic wedge or a clean, dry brush and gently pull the paint down to simulate the rust streaks.

    Layering Details:

    When the streaking is complete I add a small dot of Flat Brown to the spot to darken the spot being simulated. I typically do not pull this color down to create more streaking.

    Going along each of the car sides is an easy way to add the rust spots for me as I try not to over do the effect. It also appears more random as well.

    I continue onto the opposite side when the previous is complete, then came back to finish the ends under each walkway. The well interior will be last to get weathered, I wanted to wait until the containers were here before continuing.

    Starting on the opposite side of the car before work I wanted to have the base coat of grime ready when I was free in the evening.

    This side was done similarly to the other, I did add a few extra rust spots to the car side after the grimy streaks were dry. I also applied some rusty spots along both sides of the well and the start of scrapes on all eight of the guides. Doing this will ensure a nice layered base for a convincing oxidation effect.

    I let all the paint set and cure for a couple hours before starting on the walkway ends. The spots and scrapes were not something I wanted to try and do over.

    The technique I used is a one that I don’t typically use on smooth surfaces because it leaves a water spot look, but I got lucky here. The photos show a progression (of sorts) from being wet right after applying the fluid, then after it is dry and finally after I lightly brushed the AIM Dark Earth powder over the fully dried surface.

    The fluid I’ve mentioned is a mix of 91% iso. alcohol and some Bragdon dark rust powder. The color is a reddish color and the powder is suspended in the alcohol when shaken. I then apply it over the surface and when it evaporates, the powder is essentially left behind and looks pretty close to how rust shows up randomly on flat surfaces.

    When the alcohol had completely evaporated and the surface was dry, I went back over the area in some spots with a super soft brush and more AIM Dark Earth powder to blend some of the simulated grime across the surface. When I was satisfied with how that looked, I turned my attention to blending the underside up each end and around the coupler boxes.

    I wanted the next step to be the well interior with scrape marks and more rust spots, but couldn’t start there until I got the containers. That actually happened on a Friday afternoon and did the initial test fit and some minor trimming later that day.

    DETAILS MATTER:

    A detail that I had not mentioned yet, was that each container was from a different manufacturer. One newer Walthers and one was a much older Athearn blue box. I chose to do this specifically for a slight variation in the looks of them. Because the Walthers container has sharper printing and finer details I chose it to be the one with doors facing outwards.

    To get the Athearn container to sit pretty it needed some minor trimming. I trimmed off the pegs and raised footings that were molded into the plastic floor. This brought the overall height to just a hair taller than the Walthers.

    While the floors were removed I used some self-stick wheel weights to weight both containers, 1 ounce per.

    To get the containers to fit between the molded alignment chocks in the car I needed to gently flatten all the oversized end door details on the Athearn container. I worked slowly and gradually sanded off the small amount that was needed for a better fit.

    I then snapped the floors back together and added a couple small drops of CA to keep them stuck in place. Focusing on the floors and undersides, the next step was to color match the undersides.

    MY PROCESS CONTINUES:

    While the undersides are typically black or grimy black/brown from road grit, painting them gave me a good base for weathering them. Once dry I came back with a sponge and blotted flat black paint over the painted surface. This resulted in a chipped and peeling effect that I wanted to have showing through the open underside of this car.

    The flat black dried and that allowed me to finish them up by dry brushing some flat dark earth brown paint across the molded ribs for a more layered effect. I do wish that step had been more noticeable.

    Next, I turned to weathering both containers. After looking at prototype pictures of similar ones, I tried to duplicate the colors and apply rust spots similarly to the photos.

    For the small rust spots I dipped a plastic toothpick into an assortment of Tamiya Hull Red, Flat Brown and Linoleum Deck Brown. Randomly touching the container sides with the small tip of the toothpick, I did about 5-8 spots then blotted or wiped them down with a cosmetic wedge.

    On some spots this left a small void in the center of them, I went back later and filled the void with a contrasting rusty color to make them appear darker or more red.

    When the spots were done I turned to more blotchy patches of rust. To do these I used a combination of Vallejo’s Game Colors Rust and Corrosion. Both work very well to create a deep rust color that looks believable as a rust spot.

    I also used some Bragdon dark rust powder to fade the TRITON Lines container from dark brown to the more oxide red/brown color I had seen. Everything was sealed with Tamiya TS-80 flat clear.

    When everything had dried on the containers (overnight) I used some gel type CA to glue between the container ends and fit them in place so they would be properly aligned.

    Next step was to weather the interior of the car and to do so I used the now glued together containers as my guide to see where the various lengths would maybe scrape and cause chips/dings to the car’s body.

    I used a sharp edge of the cosmetic wedge dipped in a mix of hull red and flat brown with a small drop of flat black for darkness. I carefully and gently applied a few horizontal marks and clusters of spots with the edge and used a fine Microbrush to drag down the rust to simulate the scrape marks and natural streaking.

    To finish off the car interior I used a 1/2″ wide, 1/4″ long flat brush to lightly apply the same AIM Dark Earth powder that I used underneath to the interior corners and blend out the rusty spots. I then sealed the entire car with Tamiya TS-80 flat clear and let it sit.

    Last big step of the car was to glue the containers in place. I did this with more gel type CA and applying it sparingly to keep it from squeezing out from the ends or bottom. I came back a few hours later and used some Tamiya Extra Thin Cement to essentially plastic weld the four corners to the car bottom. This will ensure they stay in place, but also keeping the amount of glue at a minimum will allow for removal if that is ever needed.

    As a final touch I dry brushed both Kadee #5 couplers with a mix of Tamiya Flat Brown and Flat Earth paint to simulate the road grime I applied in powder form. The color is a close match.

    Just a note, I dry brushed the couplers to not hinder the knuckle movement and kept paint away from the spring.

    FINAL THOUGHTS:

    This was a fun project and allowed me to try some things that I had not tied previously. Overall this was a challenge not only because I tried something new, but because I had to exercise my patience. Typically this is not something I have to do, most of my weathering projects are done in a day or two as I do a lot of work ‘wet’.

    Hopefully you all enjoyed this more in-depth project.

  • Weather an Autorack Kit

    Here’s how I weathered this older Walthers autorack HO scale kit during the assembly.

    OVERVIEW:

    This older Walthers kit was still shrink wrapped when I found it second hand, talk about new-old-stock! I find these older kits to be conducive for weathering candidates because you can weather them in much smaller pieces versus handling the whole model. This generally reduces the chance of breaking off detail parts or leaving fingerprints that only show up when applying powders.

    I used an assortment of techniques on this project because I wanted to try washing the brighter metallic parts to match the look of a prototype photo I found.

    PREP FOR WEATHERING:

    My first step was to select side panels that matched the prototype photo I had and remove them from their casting sprues. Thankfully there wasn’t much flash clean up resulting in a nice fit and finish. The panels in the kit were blue and that needed to be changed.

    Using a sturdy piece of cardboard, I laid out some masking tape adhesive side up and stuck the panels down for painting. I only had to mask off where the herald was printed before spraying. I sprayed only the outside faces of the panels with Tamiya TS-76 mica silver for a good base color then followed up with Tamiya TS-80 flat clear.

    The flat clear knocks down the original bright silver and gives a good tooth for weathering powders.

    Using Tamiya black panel wash as a starter, I dipped a Q-tip the wash and randomly applied it across each panel starting along the bottoms and working upwards to fade it out. I found that keeping all the panels stuck to the cardboard while I did this made things much easier to keep everything contained to the cardboard.

    WEATHERING:

    When the wash dried overnight, I came back with a 1/2″ medium brush and lightly applied Bragdon soot powder across the panel, again starting at the bottom and fading towards the top creating the road grime effect. Once I was happy with how the panels looked a coat of Tamiya TS-80 flat clear was sprayed to seal them.

    I started out wanting to fade the blue to a more sun bleached baby blue shade, but the method I planned on was not going to work. I chose to skip that step, instead sprayed the entire car body with a medium-heavy coat of Tamiya flat clear and let it dry to a point where it was not tacky, but still had a lacquer odor (about 3 minutes). I then gently rubbed my thumb over some of the smooth surfaces, this lightly frosts the flat clear and created the sun fade I was wanting.

    Working on the car frame I decided to re-numbered it as well. For this car, I pulled the bristles off an old microbrush creating a fine pencil tip, dipped it in some white craft paint and carefully applied paint to change the factory printed 3 into an 8.

    Using a 1/4″ short bristle angled brush I lightly applied A.I.M. dark earth powder along the lower edge along the frame. This step took longer because the frame is narrow and I tried to keep the powder in place. Once happy I used the same angled brush upwards to drag the powder up the frame sides. I used the same powder for the car body and ends. applying it more heavily in lower areas where road grime spray would build up from various cars over years.

    For both panels that have the herald I used 600 grit sandpaper and gently worked the letters randomly until I achieved the worn look.

    ASSEMBLY, part 1:

    When the frame and car body were done, I used Loctite CA gel sparingly across the back of each panel to glue them in place. Before applying any glue I test fit each panel to ensure fitment. Starting with panels that had a herald and were end or side specific I glued them in their proper placement, then randomly selected remaining panels from my cardboard palette for the empty spaces. I let the CA cure for about an hour then came back with my Tamiya TS-80 flat clear and sprayed the entire car (minus roof).

    FINISHING THE ROOF:

    The roof was an opportunity to use a new to me product. To start I sprayed a light mist of Tamiya TS-80 flat clear over the factory silver finished roof. Next, using an ultra soft blush makeup brush dipped in Bragdon medium rust powder, I gently brushed across the part, staying parallel to the ribs and from one end to the other. It took a total of 4 passes to get the desired effect. Take your time when building up powder, the harder edges will create a highlighting effect that a contrasting color will appear unrealistic.

    ASSEMBLY, part 2:

    These older cars tend to warp and some can bow inwards badly, this car was bowed inward. To remedy this I cut a couple pieces of heavier styrene the proper inside width of the car to use as braces. Doing this step was not really needed as the roof ended up taking out most of the bow, but it sure gives the car sides a solid feeling when handling it. I ended up adding extra weight before attaching the roof with gel type CA.

    Once the car sides were good to go, I applied CA along the roof edges where it sits down inside the car body. It took a little persuasion to fit the roof to the car, but it made a big difference going slowly. Once in place, the only way to keep it from popping was to weight the roof down using my six 1-2-3 blocks. Nearly 30 hours later and the full weight of six blocks the roof was in place without any gaps.

    FINAL TOUCHES:

    On the underside did a quick brush of A.I.M. dark earth and grimy black then sealed it. Most of these details can’t be seen when on the tracks unfortunately. For the trucks, I masked and sprayed them with RustOleum ultra flat Camo black and while tacky dusted over each side frame with A.I.M. light gray powder then sealed with flat clear. I did not have any metal wheels on hand during this project initially, otherwise they would have been included. The car has wheels now, but they are not weathered as of this writing.

    As seen in the photo above, the molded and separately applied brake detail isn’t much, especially when molded in the same color as the car body. To make this small detail pop, I used a silver Sharpie paint marker and highlighted the chain and lever. I touched it before the marker paint fully dried to dull it slightly.

    The last thing I added was a short piece of .010″ brass wire to finish out the brake equipment from the lever to frame. I painted it black before gluing it in place and called this car done.