Weathering
After all the parts were painted it was time to go back and add some weathering to the locomotive. I often use Bragdon’s powders for weathering, but on this loco I used a combination of airbrushing, washing, and dry brushing to create the effects seen in the photos below.
But before I get to the photos I want to talk about the weathering techniques used on the rods and valve gear parts. In their original state these parts are all plated and are unrealistically clean and shiny. When everything was disassembled I sprayed all these plated parts with Dullcoat. This immediately changed these parts from unrealistically shiny to something that looks like clean steel. Well in real life the rods were anything but clean, but the this is just the first step.
After the Dullcoat had dried I went over the rods with a thin wash of Polly Scale Grimy Black. I applied successive coats of the wash until I got the effect that I wanted. Now the rods were starting to look dirty, but they were still to uniform. The final step was done after the model was all reassembled; with the motor hooked up and the wheels tuning I lightly sprayed the rods and lower parts of the locomotive with thinned down Polly Scale Dirt. Once again the mix was real thin and I just kept going over the lower portions of the locomotive until I achieved the effect I wanted.
Here’s a photo showing the weathering effects on the rods:
To simulate the soot from the stack the top portion of the boiler was lightly sprayed with straight Engine Black. This effect was continued down the sides of the smokebox to give the effect of the soot working its way down from the top.
This next photo shows the effects of water scaling on the boiler:
Water scale deposits were simulated using very thin light streaks of Floquil Gray Primer. I just lightly sprayed boiler in vertical streaks to simulate the steam and water deposits running down the boiler.
This next photo above shows more of the subtle water scaling effects, and also note a bit of overspray on the cab lettering to dirty it up a bit.
Here is a shot showing the weathering on the tender:
Note the scale deposits, the dirty trucks, and rusted re-railer.
Okay now that I’ve kept you in suspense long enough its time for the photos of the finished model.
Page 9 - Last updated September 7, 2005