I've started getting dirty!

[atsf_arizona]

Oh, it would help if I followed up on my Aug 2006 promise to also post a picture of a lightly weathered Minitrix Santa Fe H12-44 ( this was a job that I commissioned Randgust to paint for me):



Basically my modus operandi is the same:

1)  Remove shell, weather with Bragdon Enterprise 'dust' weather powder, then touch up with 'soot', 'rust' etc.

2)  Dry-brush trucks grimy black.     Normal variations in dry-brushing color are OK appropriate.   

Some freight cars  trucks or wheels (usually modern roller bearing trucks) require a more rust appearance on the drybrushing, so that I tend to use railroad tie brown with a touch of grimy black wash added, as shown on the wheels of the following intermodal car on the left.  For comparison, the car on the right still hasn't had it's wheels painted:



For comparison, here is a prototype shot:



OK, now I'm back to work.  It's a good thing this hobby is supposed to take a long time... it certainly is taking me a long time to get thru weathering the fleet! 

[atsf_arizona]

From June 2006 - light weathering on a Santa Fe Rx-27 40 foot ice reefer:

[atsf_arizona]

Some comparison shots I made, just fooling around with the camera:



Closeup:



Enjoy!

[Denver Road Doug]

Whew, I was afraid this post was gonna have a picture of somebody in a bathtub again!   ;D

John, I saw a slide show last night you (and a bunch of others I'm sure) would've loved.  Mostly El Cajon circa early 70's with lots of great power...SD24's, Gators, Cowls, etc. and some SP, UP stuff as well like DD35's.

Anyway, the weathering is going good there.  I recall you commenting on your visit here in Texas a couple of years ago that weathering was high on your list of things to conquer, and you are well on your way.

[atsf_arizona]

Doug, thx for the reply and it's nice to hear from you.  Hope you and all the Dallas N scalers are doing well.   

[atsf_arizona]

I've been working on weathering the Santa Fe passenger locomotive
fleet and passenger cars.  This has turned out to be a great learning
experience;  it's noticeably more challenging and time consuming to
get close to the subtle weathering that a often-washed passenger
loco/car would receive, as compared to a dirty freight diesel or
freight car. 

Thanks to Skibbe for giving me the tips on what/where to weather
passenger equipment, that made my efforts start to turn out (hopefully)
OK:   http://therailwire.net/smf/index.php/topic,11860.msg94785.html

Following is one example of my efforts so far to take a stock model and
improve the appearance, a Santa Fe PA-1:



I worked on getting appearance of depth in the trucks with washes and
strategic applications of Grimy Black in the deep areas. Here's a
comparison, after (left) and before (right) on the PA-1 A-1-A trucks:



Investigating a closer look, here's the EMD F unit B-B trucks. After
weathering is on the left, before weathering on the right:



After the original step of applying a base coat of Stainless Steel
silver paint to the trucks, here is where the Grimy Black for making
shadows was applied.  Final step was to apply an overall wash, made
of 6 parts water to 1 part PollyScale acrylic Grimy Black - to tone down the silver: 



Takes some time, but it's fun.  A continuing journey.

Thx again, Skibbe!

[atsf_arizona]

More progress shots.

I've been spending good part of this new year learning to weather
passenger locomotives and cars.  It's a different, more challenging
task than freight locos, especially for a railroad like Santa Fe that
prided itself in keeping their passenger locos clean.

Part of the challenge is that in keeping the weathering subtle, also
means that after I'm done, it is not that obvious by looking at the
model, to see where all the time went into doing subtle weathering
on one of Santa Fe's 'clean' F7 Warbonnets!   


Here's some pictures.

A 'before' shot of a N scale Kato Santa Fe F7 in Warbonnet:




An 'after' shot....



Here's the differences from the unweathered stock Kato F7, pointed out:




To me, the differences are really only noticeable when seen side by side.
And takes me several hours to do up one of these F7s. 

But my modeling eyes and perfectionist nature just cannot resist doing the weathering. 

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Really nice work John.

Being really subtle is MUCH harder than being heavy handed.

[SirTainly]

Very nice work John, I'm with Ed on less is more.

[lashedup]

Nice job John. You put a lot of work into labeling and taking the photos and the subtle details are great.

-jamie

[atsf_arizona]

Continuing with my weathering of the passenger fleet.

Now I'm working on lightly weathering the Santa Fe E6's in N scale.  Here's a work in progress:



- - - - - - - - -



We can see improvement areas in the above shot, like painting the inside of the plastic
grabiron footsteps to be silver

- - - - - - - - -



And I need to use a black magic marker on the brass flywheel, which is right now
visible thru the side window.

Then need a little dust along the undercarriage.... 

[amato1969]

Nice and subtle -- I like it a lot|

[outdoorsfellar]

No such thing as a clean empty hopper here on the Allegheny & Cumberland !

[John]

No such thing as a clean empty hopper here on the Allegheny & Cumberland !

do you have a track plan?

[mopaustin]

John, you're weathering looks just right for the pride of the ATSF! 

Good & subtle.