Trying Weathering Chalks
#1
After getting back into modeling I found that I had forgotten how I did some of my weathering. The last few months I have been experimenting with different methods. I have given up on airbrushing as a method. I was growing dissatisfied with it back in the old days.

In the past and now I have used a combination of washes and dry brushing for weathering. I have used craft paints exclusively. I have had in my opinion varying degrees of success with these methods. For washes I used blue windshield washer fluid with great success. However, recently I have not been happy with it. They must have changed the formulation and I believe lowered the alcohol content. I can’t prove this, but I had an old bottle and things were better than the bottle I bought earlier this year.

I was also a big fan of Folk Art paint but their color selection has been reduced in the stores around here. Gone are many of my favorites. I have tried other brands but they are usually too watery for my purposes.

I have searched YouTube and found several videos which at first seemed helpful. After trying the methods, I was left frustrated with my level of success. The videos always seem to be missing some important pre-starting step or just became boring ramblings.

I purchased a couple of books. I tend to like printed instructions. For me, the videos can be great to show something, but it is hard to repeat the instructions or in some cases find the particular technique I am looking for in a 30-minute video.

One thing that caught my eye was weathering chalks. I have tried them in the past with no luck. The car would look great until I sealed it. All the work I did would disappear. I would do multiple applications but, in the end, it looked like I did nothing.

I started to read and see examples using the newer weathering chalks. The more I researched the more I liked what I found. A couple of months ago I purchased some Pan Pastel chalks. My first attempts were to add the chalks to cars that had been previously weathered using washes.

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Tom
Silence is golden but Duct tape is silver
Ridley Keystone & Mountain Railroad
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#2
After reading more about using the chalks I decided tonight to weather a car entirely with chalks. I selected an Athearn Gulf Mobile & Ohio 40-foot boxcar. I recently obtained the car off a certain auction site for $5. The kit was built and came with Kadee #5 couplers installed. It is proper weight. The only drawback was the plastic wheels. I will change them once I get more metal wheels.

I wiped the dust off the car and checked for any other dirt or stains. Once I was satisfied I gave the car a spray of Dullcoat. I let it dry for a few days. AKA other things came up.

I started with an off-white chalk to fade the car. It was then I discovered a problem. Apparently, whoever handled the car before did not have clean fingers. Fingerprints appeared in several locations. After a few under the breath comments. I decided to go over the car with a medium gray. This appeared to cover the fingerprints. I then used shades of umber and sienna along the bottom of the car to show splashes and dirt accumulation. I went over the roof with gray and black. Happy with the way the car looked I sealed it with Dullcoat.

After letting it dry for most of the day, I retrieved the car. To my horror several fingerprints were back but now in gray. I now went over them with shades of red oxide. This seemed to do the trick. I also added the red oxide to the roof.

I weathered the trucks using all the above-mentioned colors. I did not do the wheels. As I stated before they are plastic and will be replaced.

I was happy with the car until I took the following photos. You can see of the second one there is still a smudge. I will do some additional weathering there to blend something in at that spot.

The sides

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The roof

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The trucks

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Tom
Silence is golden but Duct tape is silver
Ridley Keystone & Mountain Railroad
My Rail Images Gallery
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#3
Despite the trouble with fingerprints, that car looks pretty good to me. 

I'm pretty fussy about what's allowed in the layout room, and the main no-no is food, although beverages are allowed. I don't enforce Rule G, either, but I always handle rolling stock, locos, or vehicles only with clean hands.  Pretty-well no one else is supposed to be touching anything, unless they own it.

I do allow small children to touch some items, as that's how they learn to be respectful of things not theirs.  None of my kids are interested in model trains, although a couple of the grandkids do enjoy watching them run, or even just exploring the layout room to look at the scenes.  I expect that, too will end, so I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

My younger daughter is an artist, and we sometimes go to a nearby shop for supplies for her.  On one occasion, I was browsing and came across some oil-based pastels.  I picked up a variety of earth tones, along with some shades suitable for rust, some yellows and oranges (for reefer weathering) and, of course, black, white, and a couple of greys, too.  Some were round like a fat crayon, while others were square, but about the same size, and all had a paper wrap, like a crayon.

To use them I simply rubbed them over some coarse-ish sandpaper, then dumped the resultant dust into a piece of bubble-wrap that had held Krazy Glue to a piece of card.  I then got out some past-their-prime paint brushes, and went to work on a few randomly selected cars.  The advantage of the oil-based stuff is that it doesn't seem to come off very easily, as my cars get handled a lot, taken off the layout and put in their box, then later taken out and place on the layout somewhere else.  With clean hands, no finger prints on the cars, and no pastels on the fingers.

I'd offer some photos, but photobucket pictures will not show on this Forum, for some reason.

I did find these, though...

A couple of Accurail cars with C-D-S lettering...

   

...and a couple of Accurail boxcars with factory lettering...

   

   

...and another Accurail car with lettering from C-D-S...

   

Every once in a while I'll grab a couple of random cars and add some weathering to them.  I do find the airbrush-applied weathering more controllable, though.

Wayne
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#4
They all look great!!

This is always fun in G scale.... Weathering chalk, dirty fingers and dullcoat work really well!!!
~~ Mikey KB3VBR (Admin)
~~ NARA Member # 75    
~~ Baldwin Eddystone Unofficial Website

~~ I wonder what that would look like in 1:20.3???
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#5
Tom while the "Rebel Route" is probably politically incorrect in this hyper charged time Eek Icon_lol  the car looks great. I have used chalks for years.
Mike

Sent from my pocket calculator using two tin cans and a string
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#6
Wayne, those cars are great looking.
Tom
Silence is golden but Duct tape is silver
Ridley Keystone & Mountain Railroad
My Rail Images Gallery
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#7
Finished a second car. I have to say I am quickly becoming a big fan of the Pan Pastels.

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Tom
Silence is golden but Duct tape is silver
Ridley Keystone & Mountain Railroad
My Rail Images Gallery
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