Part of the dread of weathering may be in *that I feel I have all the requisite skill, space and tools I need to knock together a kit but I lose confidence in my skill levels when it comes to weathering and lack what I see as essential tools. Weathering is of course an area that demands confidence. Also, I demand that a job is done correctly and without an airbrush I have convinced myself I will not be satisfied with the end result and be confident the end result will remain as i intended after handling the model!
But, I think I have made peace with the fact I will not own and be able to use an airbrush for a number of years but am not willing to have pristine models ruin the effect I am aiming for. So, the models below are completed as you can tell without an airbrush, instead I use Humbrol smoke pigment, a couple of rust and brakedust pigments by carr's and humbrol decalfix. Also a white pencil for handwritten legends.
Prior to beginning, these vans have had a coat of humbrol acrylic matt spray from a rattle can. I use this to eliminate the high gloss varnish I hand brushed on prior to the decals going on.
I start by having a small amount of decalfix on one side of a dish and smoke pigment on the other. I pick up a decent amount of the decalfix and mix in a little pigment. The solution is used as an enamel wash would be used and behaves in a similar way, running into grooves and around raised detail. more pigment is added to create a darker tone in corners particularly top corners and around the bottom of the van sides.
The metal corner plates of the van is treated with a tiny amount of decalfix and a clump of rust pigment. The clumps allow for the appearance of thinker rust patches.
I experimented with doing the hand written shunters messages before the weathering process but the decalfix removed most of it. Of course old messages would be removed by hand or through weathering so no great loss!
A word of caution about the process. The decalfix runs neatly and evenly around matt surfaces but pools and is repelled by gloss surfaces such as ready to run models and high gloss models. This is evident in the the white vertical bands on the shocvan which show areas of pooling. The beauty of decalfix and pigment weathering is that although drying and sealing the weathering, water will reactivate it!
The underframe is dealt with by applying a brake dust pigment and decalfix solution like a wash. Then areas of build up are treated separately and rust pigment dusted over where appropriate. The dusting will hopefully be sealed by the still wet decalfix but if not, the wagon will usually be handled by the body only so noy a problem really. I think what helps this technique is that I paint the underframes in dark grey as opposed to black. I mix humbrol 32 and 33 to make a very dark grey usually, but in the case of the fruit van I think I used pure humbrol 32 dark grey.
Another note of caution would be that as a positive, the decalfix does its proper job of reducing silvering of the transfers even further BUT unless they have been sealed prior to this process they may become lose and move. Each of the wagons featured are sprayed with humbrol acrylic matt varnish from a rattle can BEFORE the process. Further protection could be added by a further coat of varnish but the effect may be deadened slightly.
Its worth saying I heard of this technique from the wonderful humbrol how to vids on youtube. The guy is a scalemodeller and goes by the handle "scalemodel medic".
One last warning, as I said weathering requires confidence so perhaps practise on a less valuable item first if you so wish to try this technique.
Happy Modelling folks.
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