How do YOU weather a tank car?

[3rdrail]

This is the last of the series for which I took specific photographs. Depending on the contents carried and the lessee, tank cars could be anything from "squeaky clean" to filthy. Most of mine are "hazmat" or petroleum products cars, which are not permitted to get too grungy.

Here's a recent Micro-Trains issues, with the top coated with accumulated grime and placards added:


Here's an "oldie but goodie", a Rivarossi car sold by Atlas in the early 1970's. Again, duPont kept its cars up, so only grime on the top, plus placards:


Another Micro-Trains car, an SHPX with some pre-spray can graffiti from MicroScale. Grime and Dullcote added as well as the placards:


Now, let's see YOUR weathered tank cars!. With an explanation of how you accomplished it as well, thanks. 

[tom mann]

I've only weathered one tankcar ages ago.  I guess it may be time for another!  I'm a fan of the faded black look, where all the black seems to have been burned off by the sun and only the dirty primer is visible on the top.  I don't know how to do this effect, yet.

[SAH]

Must agree with 3rdrail about prototype tank cars.  I don't have any grungy ones.  All are lightly weathered with an airbrush and chalks to bring up the details.  Here is a 80's era Dupont car for motor fuel anti-knock compound.  Saw them all the time when I worked at a refinery.  The base is a Bachmann tank (I think) with the full detail treatment applied. 



All the geat weathering work I see on this site has casued me to re-evaluate my own efforts.  But recently a thread on the Steam Ear Frt Car list about weathered rolling stock then vs. now has caused me to think about this subject on a deeper level.  I'll post a new topic when I get my thoughts together.

Steve

[The Donkey]

Nice car Steve! I've always been a bit intimidated by weathering a tank car-but I do plan
on doing some eventually. For now this is as far as I've gotten tank car wise-I was asked
to "tag" this car for Tony (Sterling) since these cars for some reason are "Loop" faves-I
asked if he wanted it weathered, but he said nah, just tag it!


They seem to be prevalent on the Q640 & Q641 which run up & down the branch up the wye:


Incidentally, here's another tank I caught on the same train as above-I liked the wheel kick-up on it:

[Chris333]

Not so much to show weathering, but just to show off ;D

This is a Z scale car that started as a Marklin. I swapped the underframe with one laser cut by Robert Ray to correct the odd Marklin truck centers, he also made the TEXACO decals.

Just gave it my usual light dry brushing and ink wash. The wheels and trucks have some old Tom Mann/Rich Yourstone colors added.

And this one is supposed to be from the 1915 era. I used Intermountain parts and cast more domes. Tom and Gregg made the decals for this one.

Erie had a branch that ran to Oil City.

[wm3798]

I bashed this from an old Trix tank.  Microscale lettering set.  I used flat black, dulled it down further with dullcote, then used some gloss acrylic to represent some spillage around the loading valve.

Lee

[MrKLUKE]

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[Pray59]

This one is weathered with Rustall and Alcohol on Dullcote to try and simulate oxidation. I still need to change to the yellow Oxidizer placards, since I think it is a Chlorine car:


This one got the same treatment, but you can see my weathering skills need more work:


-Robert

[Black Diamond]

Here's the first tanker I tried a couple years ago. It's pretty rough (spillage should be smoother for sure) but I was trying a couple new things like rusting the ladder and platforms with chalk and adding grime over the graffiti.



This car has since been slightly melted and deformed for another project that it's better suited for...