Weathering a CN N scale boxcar - Printable Version +- (https://bigbluetrains.com) +-- Forum: Branchline (https://bigbluetrains.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=45) +--- Forum: Scenery details (https://bigbluetrains.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=44) +--- Thread: Weathering a CN N scale boxcar (/showthread.php?tid=666)

Weathering a CN N scale boxcar - Biased turkey - 02-01-2009 Fitrst I airspraied the whole body with a diluted 1/8 of the basic boxcar color ( mineral red ) The truck was airsprayed grimy black diluted 1/4 The coupler roofbrown diluted 1/8 The boxcar side and top were coated with: acrylic burnt umber and raw sienna Then some white artist crayon on the CN lettering raw umber pastel + 1 coat of Model master Acryl 4636 flat clear acrylic . Jacques Re: Weathering a CN N scale boxcar - Spitfire - 02-08-2009 Jacques, that's a great technique for getting the lettering to look realistically faded. I'm always a bit nervous about painting couplers, since I wrecked a few with too much paint in the past, but a light wash sounds like a good "solution"! cheers Val Re: Weathering a CN N scale boxcar - Biased turkey - 02-10-2009 Val, thank you for taking some of your valuable time to reply. I like the white artist's crayon technique for letters fading I agree, painting the couplers is a delicate operation. I have an airbrush and using some very diluted roofbrown ( 1 part paint / 8 parts isopropyl alcohol ) avoids jamming the moving parts. I complete weathering the couplers by drybrushing some roofbrown on places I'm sure it won't jam the coupler. If you don't own an airbrush I think you still can go with a very diluted wash. Jacques Re: Weathering a CN N scale boxcar - Herc Driver - 02-10-2009 I like it! The blackened areas where the door would have slid and scuffed off paint looks good to me and sort of makes the whole car more convincing. Nice job! The rust on the CP car in trail looks good too. I've found some vey light yellow on that boxcar red towards the top looks pretty good too. Sort of gives a more sun-baked look. Re: Weathering a CN N scale boxcar - Biased turkey - 02-10-2009 Thank you Herc Driver for taking some of your valuable time to reply and for the kind words. I'm glad you noticed the area where the door scuffed the paint. I took at least 20 pictures of CN and CV ( Central Vermont ) boxcars while walking along the CN track down the road. I noticed that most of the boxcars have that scuffed paint next to the door and I wanted to reproduce it. Having pictures of the prototype really helps when doing any rolling stock weathering. That CP car is my test car , if there is any weathering technique I 'm not familiar with then I apply it on my CP testboxcar first That's why that CP boxcar is way overweathered. I decided to model CN ( and Grand Trunk ) so I like when the competitor ( CP ) rolling stock looks like a piece of junk. I'm surprised you mention the light yellow paint because I didn't use any at all. It might be caused by the settings I used on my Canon Powershot A530 Camera ( I like that model, good quality to price ratio ). Jacques Re: Weathering a CN N scale boxcar - Herc Driver - 02-11-2009 Sorry for the misplaced wording...what I meant to say was that I've used yellow on those boxcar red cars and like the shading effect...not that I discovered yellow on your car. I apologize for the confusion. Overall, I like the effect you created. The cars look used, a bit rusted, but not neglected and ready to scrap. I think that heavier rust on the CP car looks pretty convincing though...how did you get that effect? Re: Weathering a CN N scale boxcar - Biased turkey - 02-15-2009 Herc, I'm sorry about creating that confusion with the yellow paint. Could you please post any picture of that boxcar with the yellow paint ?. About the CP boxcar: First I faded the lettering with some drybrushing of the base color ( in that case CP action red ) I used artist oil paint for the rust, mixing burnt umber, burnt sienna and raw umber. Oil paint looks good but the problem is that it is thick and it is very obvious on a N scale boxcar. To thin the paint there are 2 solutions: 1) dip a brush into some thinner and apply some stroke on the fresh paint 2) When the paint is dry ( it can take several days ) slightly sand it with a very fine sanding paper. On the CN boxcar , for the rust, I used some acrylic paint from Model Masters ( burnt umber, burnt sienna and raw umber too ). Jacques Re: Weathering a CN N scale boxcar - Herc Driver - 02-16-2009 Sorry for not replying quickly...I'm flying all over the place this week and away from my computer. I like using the yellow chalk (very light yellow) and some white on the roof to simulate that sun baked look. I'm not even sure I could take a picture showing the results...the flash might over power the slight shading. I picked up the hint from Joe Fugate's work. He had a suggestion of using yellow on the top of tree limbs to tone down the very uniform green look of most store bought trees. I applied it to chalking cars and it seemed to work well. When I get home, I'll try digging through some pics of my weathered cars and see if there's a good example. Still...you've got some nice looking weathered cars...I still can't get over that rust effect on the CP car. That looks pretty real. Re: Weathering a CN N scale boxcar - LynnB - 02-16-2009 I really like the faded look, are you going to rust it up a bit? Re: Weathering a CN N scale boxcar - Herc Driver - 02-17-2009 Here's that shot I mentioned showing the subtle shading difference between chalking with white and yellow/white. (These were some of the first cars I made a serious attempt at weathering with chalk.) I bought three identical cars, the untouched car is on the right. The middle car is weathered with white chalk only, and the car on the left is weathered with a mixture of yellow and white chalk. The picture quality is prbably not good enough to tell the subtle shading difference...but you can see a slight difference. Re: Weathering a CN N scale boxcar - Herc Driver - 02-17-2009 Here's a little better picture. Again, the car on the right is untouched and the car on the left is weathered with a mixture of yellow and white chalk. The slight rust on the trucks is from a rust colored chalk (I found out later you really shouldn't use chalk on the trucks so the wheels don't foul and increase friction). To my eye...the yellow seems to cut the deepness of the colors down more effectively than white alone. So I use a very slight dusting of yellow first, then go over it with white. Adding a yellow dusting to blue, black, boxcar red, or red cars seems to lighten them up really well. Re: Weathering a CN N scale boxcar - Biased turkey - 02-17-2009 To Lynn: Thank you for the kind word. About the rust, I lightly drybrushed some acrylic ( burnt sienna ) along some rivets lines. I used a simple mask: a narrow piece of styrene with a vertical slot. That rust is more visible on the other side of the boxcar That weathering is not complete, I'll finish it with: 1) some drybrushing acrylic burnt sienna on the trucks 2) very diluted engine black on the ends 3) very diluted L&N gray on the bottom sides Herc, thanks for taking some of your valuable time to post those pictures. I can see a subtle difference, ( mostly on the 1st picture ). Well done. I did my 1st weathering tests using only pastels on another boxcar. I like the technique but was not satisfied with the result so I cleaned the whole boxcar with soapy water . It is in my opinion an important point for pastels: if you don't like the result just wash it away. That will be a good oportunity to try and see by myself the result of mixing yellow and white. Jacques Re: Weathering a CN N scale boxcar - Herc Driver - 02-18-2009 I've got to try your technique making rust...the effect looks great. You are so right about just washing away the chalk if needed...that's what I love about using chalk. I tried an alcohol wash (my very first attempts at weathering) but was way too heavy handed and created cars way too weathered. I tried dry brushing, but got the paint on too thick. And I tried india ink wash with mixed results. I've stayed with chalks since I can control the subtle shading better and never leave a brush mark. But dry brushing lasts and won't smudge like chalk, so I really should give it another try. Hopefully soon I'll try your technique and paint mixture and see how things come out.