weathering on the car body. It de- pends on what you are trying to simulate, but in general: Grime — Good basic lighter color that simulates the effects of road grime.
Mud or Rail Brown — Used to show the effects of dirt that wash- es up on the sides of units. Weathered Black — For loco- motives that spend a lot of time going through tunnels. Cab units such as F- and E- units often have a distinctive “bow wave” effect that starts just after the pilot and sweeps back along the side, not unlike the wave effect a boat makes. Take a look at some photos of F-units, and you will see that effect. It was simulated on the SP F7 with an application of Flo- quil Mud lightly airbrushed along the sides of the units. It is subtle, but effective. For a general overall dulling down, either Grime or Weathered Black will provide a good start- ing point. Work with extremely light applications. Remember, you are not painting the locomo- tive, but just “dusting” it, as real dust and grime would in real life. If in doubt about how heavily you should weather a unit, always stop and look at it a few hours or a day later. It is easy to add ad- ditional weathering, but impossi- ble to remove it once applied. For units that spend a lot of time go- ing through tunnels, such as Rio Grande locomotives, an overall dusting of Weathered Black can be effective, but go easy, and study the effect before it gets too heavy.
FURTHER
WEATHERING DETAILS
Walkways
If you take a look at any hood units from above, you will see that the walkways are quite light in tone since they are covered with dust, dirt, and grime. Even black units will have walkways that look light gray. The contrast is quite distinctive and often not mod- eled. Using light applications of Grime or Earth with an airbrush will simulate that effect. You can either spray from the top down, which will coat the top of the handrails too, or spray from the side through the handrails, which will coat the sides of the hand- rails. Since the weathering coat is highly diluted and you are spray- ing with a lot of air and not much paint (double-action airbrush), the effect is usually acceptable. If the lightened handrails both- er you, you can come back later and lightly spray them with some Weathered Black to darken them down, holding a piece of card- stock behind them to keep the Weathered Black off the side of the hood.
Another technique to weather walkways is to use weathering chalks, such as Bragdon Weath- ering Colors. Generally, the light grays and light browns work well and have the added benefit of not impacting the handrails.
Roofs The roof is important since we
typically see our models from the top. Weathering on the roof of a diesel combines sun fading, ac- cumulation of dust and dirt, and exhaust soot. Depending on the color of the roof, you may need to do some additional painting first. For example, if the model has a shiny black roof, it is rec- ommended first to paint the roof a very dark flat gray color such as Weathered Black paint. That way subsequent weathering will be more noticeable.
If you study photos of the roofs of diesel locomotives, you will generally see a mottled effect from sun fading and accumulated dirt. Sun fading can be simulated by randomly lightly spraying some Grime on sections of the roof. Here again, studying prototype photos helps. If the roof is curved, such as on an Alco RS-3 or an F- unit, you can do some gray wash coats to show streaking from rain and snow. The final effect is ex- haust soot. It is important to de- cide the principal direction in which the locomotive operates, so the dominant soot accumula- tion is in that direction behind the stack(s).
Spray light coats of Engine Black from a low angle to simu- late the soot blowing back while the locomotive is moving. Feather the “soot” out with the heaviest ef- fect around the stack(s). By spray- ing from a low angle, you will get the “shadow” pattern behind pro- tuberances, such as fan housings, horns, and the like. Even though most F-units run in the cab for-
Fuel Tank Far left: Fuel spills show up on the outside of fuel tanks, but the black is actually dirt adhering to the wet diesel fuel rather than the color of the diesel fuel itself.
Fuel Spill Left: The SDP45 had a unique pattern of fuel spills due to the shape of the fuel tank. Rather than just having a pat- tern below the fuel filler, the fuel ran all along the top of the tank and down the sides, causing the multiple spill marks.
FEBRUARY 2016 65
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