Hopper weathering

[Mark4]

Weathering is effective at bringing out small details irrespective of the colors used and how it's done. Most rolling stock is molded in an impact-modified styrene. Pigments are added to give the color but these are typically at the rate of 4%. For small details light isn't always reflected off the surface of the car but off pigment below the surface. Just a light dusting of grime puts a lot of pigment at the surface and the detail (which was almost translucent prior to weathering) leaps out. In the days when I had time for model railroading as a hobby all of my rolling stock and locos were weathered even if lightly. I can't comment on how "accurate" Iain's weathering is but it looks good to me and a big improvement over the showroom item. Top marks to him. More of you should break those cars out of their boxes and give them the treatment (especially rare MT cars).

[Iain]

Lol, my MT NS cars are getting weathered as well.

[Trainman900]

Try hunter scenery co RUST IT or OXIDE RUST Weathering. www.huntersceneryco.com

[Iain]

Why buy rust coloured paint or chalk when I get get real rust powder for free?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Some of us don't live around rusting hulks.

And because "real" rust will probably not quite scale down well.

[Iain]

Actually, the rust is left over from a project I did for chemistry last year.  I had to design and make a battery using something other than zinc and copper.  I extracted ferrous sulfate from fertilizer.  The leftover was rust.  Since it was already nicely powdered, I decided to use it for weathering, although I did just through a couple pounds of it away.

If any of y'all want some, I could mail it to you for free.  No need to pay for something I have loads of.

[tom mann]

I have been experimenting with using rust suspended in a matte medium wash for weeks now.  The benefit to this is that the rust has a shimmer to it (like prototype sized rust, since it is).  And I get to brag that I can weather without using paints.   However, I was unable to get the rust particles small enough to work in nscale.  The matte medium makes the rust 'stick'.

So Iain, if you have a powder, I would like to try it.

[Lenny53]

Some of us don't live around rusting hulks.

Let a piece of steel wool soak in water and oxidize then let it dry out, it can then be ground up into a very fine powder.