Weathering Engines a Continuous thread.

[C&OMtnMan]

Very nice, great script you gave us to follow.

Those 2 plow pictures show an outstanding weathering job. Great work

I am a true believer in doing the fade. But that is up to your tastes as no matter what you do with the modeling fade or not it will have a match in the prototype world. Rail splatter is somewhat the same. I used to do it for everything but I actually have a couple commission clients who asked me to leave it off on the end panels. Anything east of the Mississippi River I use an Earth Brown or the Dark earth from Vallejo Air.

Keep us informed

I may try the fade on that locomotive. Not that it really needs it, but potentially as a practice piece for the Scaletrains locos.

I have done only white or gray fades so far. I haven’t done any with any body color mixed in so far.

I also have to think about the two-color nature of the paint job. A fade tinted with blue might work right on the sides, with it giving the impression that blue is seen through fading yellow lettering, but I don’t envision that looking right on the yellow ends.

 

[CPR Zee]

Ok, trying my hand at my first weathered locomotive (N Scale), a BLI CSX ET44. As of this writing, it remains a work in progress.

This picture below is as close as is possible to a “before” picture as I can get. Note that no fading gas been done to the body. BLI’s CSX colors are distinctly lighter than what Scaletrains puts on theirs, and is much more flat in sheen as well. The BLI looks decidedly pre-faded next to a Scaletrains:

View attachment 185190

The goal of today’s work was twofold:

1. Rust/dirty up the plow a bit (and go over the M/U cabling & connectors afterward to get them to stand out a bit from the rust.
2. Fade the bogies and tank.
3. Highlight the various grilles/screens on the boby with a flat black wash.

The bogey fading is already done in the above photo, but the Scaletrains at left is still in it s ahiny black glory, so that conveys a pretty good idea of the “before” look of the BLI.

Here is the rear plow, having been rusted with a mix of two parts Vallejo Burnt Umber to one part Mission models normal rust. Thinned about 1:1 with water, airbrushed on. Going much thinner made it want to run down to the leading edge of the plow. After spraying on ine coat and allowing to dry, I painted flat black onto the cabling, and a small amount of a Revell silver lacquer. Sprayed on a second coat of the rust/dirt mixture, and re-highlighted the cables with a flat black wash, and then used a mini Q-tip with 99% IPA to wipe down some of the rust off the connectors. This photo shows the rear end of the loco; it’s just a better photo:

View attachment 185191


And here is the front:

View attachment 185192

For the fading of the bogeys & fuel tank, I couldnt find the “grimy black” otgers advocate. The goal of it appeared to provide a “slate gray” kind of color. I chose Mission Models “Anthracite” black, and lightened it with one part Vallejo neutral gray to four parts if the anthracite, Thinned about 2:1 with water. (The Antractite is thick stuff, needed extra thinning for the airbrush. Afrer letting it garden for a few hours, i sealed it with Dullcote thinned 1:1 for airbrushing. After that, I highlighted holes and crevices with Vallejo black, thinned to a wash. The back end:

View attachment 185193

That photo also shows the result of highlighting some of the grille work on the body.

The middle, showing the fuel tank, a little dash of red to render the sight glass/ level indicator visible:

View attachment 185194

And the front:

View attachment 185195

And here are a couple of overall shots, showing the grille highlighting, and an overview of the current state of the locomotive:

View attachment 185196

Not the best brightness, but does convey the topside grille highlighting:

View attachment 185197

Same shot, but with the camera flash, renders this one more representative of the overall color:

View attachment 185198

Since this BLI is decidedly lighter than my Scaletrains ET44s, I’m not sure this one will get a fade coat.

The plan forward:

1. Highlight/draw out some detail on the white cab roof.
2. Road splatter area over the lower extremeties. I have the Vallejo desert ran others have used, but in looking at it, that seems more of an arid/desert color, and I’m modeling West Virginia (specifically the New River area), so something more brown to a reddish brown (without turning it into a rust color) may be more in order.
3. To fade or not to fade? Either way, I have a Vallejo Blue Angels blue coming, to be a minor additive to a fade coat, be it for this, or down the road for those Scaletrains units.

Nice work dude, I'm tipping my hat to you. I can't imagine weathering N scale locos and rolling stock, it's so darn small.
There was a few years back around when I was about 14 that I was modelling in N scale... wow that would be tuff to work with.
Keep it coming!

Z

 

[C&OMtnMan]

Nice work dude, I'm tipping my hat to you. I can't imagine weathering N scale locos and rolling stock, it's so darn small.
There was a few years back around when I was about 14 that I was modelling in N scale... wow that would be tuff to work with.
Keep it coming!

Z

Thank you!

I’ve got a fair amount of stuff in the thread about weathering rolling stock. But it’s 1920s-1950s steam era, so everything is either boxcar red, or black hoppers.

 

[TLOC]

Next locomotive up is a STX GE ES44ac operator version of BNSF 5756. Interesting that the last 10 diesels I have weathered have all been either Athearn Genesis with Soundtraxx Tsunami2 decoders or already programmed to cab number STX Rivet Counters with ESU version decoders. This was a pre-owned unit a client received a good deal (!!!) on but was programmed to something other than the default of 3 or the cab #5756. There was no manual and after sitting at the program track for about 1 hour I found it was programmed to #13. Yep, 13!

I’m taking a break as I gave up trying to program it 1st to 5756 and then 3! I will be test running it this afternoon, change out the couplers, replace the speakers and mask off the windows.

I am home this afternoon as my back is very sore and it was getting tough to stand while at an op session this morning. I can do all the the above stuff sitting even though today is my weathering off day. With a couple well placed bar stools I can test run (ok operate) the locomotive while testing my track work. No weathering until I start masking the windows.

Once masked, a heavy fade is coming. Picture sent for inspiration use is dated 2015

credit to the photographer and website are shown on the photos frame. Fading at its earliest would be tomorrow afternoon. Pictures after…

 

[TLOC]

Never a good thing when the client says, where is ???

Found it as it is labeled for him but in the next pile of diesels over!

#2867 is a Gp39-2 from Athearn Genesis but instead of a Tsunami2 decoder has a ESU version 4. Again purchased pre-owned it’s not programmed to default 3 or the cab number. Programmed to 4!

I will weather #5756 and 2867 together. Stay tuned!

 

[TLOC]

BNSF 5756 and 2867 are finally programmed to the cab numbers. It took re-reading the NCE power cab manual, the ESU decoder V4 manual online and then 3 different You Tube videos to figure out why the cab numbers were not being accepted. But they are done and I know a lot more then I will ever need about CV’s on ESU decoders. Something that should have taken maybe 5 minutes each took over 3 hours to fix. Why would someone change a bunch of CV’s and not write anything down?

The client is happy but when he asked me to map the ESU CV’s to match the Soundtraxx Tsunami2 decoder CV setup I had to say no.

I have clear coated and faded both 5756 and 2867. Nothing now until Monday

 

[C&OMtnMan]

Well, my first weathered locomotive is done: A BLI GEVO ET44, CSX, N scale. By way of reminder, here it was as of my last update, without a body fade, and just some mild fading of the fuel tank & bogeys (my fade recipe for those was: 1 part Mission Models “Anthracite,” 1 part Vallejo Air White):

Having had some of my pure white body fades result in a “frosted” look to a few cars, I decided to use a technique I read about, putting a small amount of body color mixed in with the fade.

Ok, I have no in-progress photos to show. The body fade was 1 part Vallejo Air “Deep Blue” (no, it doesn’t play chess), with 4 parts Vallejo Air White. The Deep Blue was advertised as “Blue Angels Blue” by the seller on Amazon. (If you look at the visible part of another loco at the top of the photo, you can see basis for picking a “Blue Angels” flavor of blue.Net mixture was thinned 4:1 with Vallejo Air airbrush thinner.

Bit of a birds-eye view:

For the cab roof, I was worried that I would get a look that I didn’t like with a blue-tinted fade. I was right, so I gently wiped it away with 99% IPA, then made a dirty gray wash of Vallejo Neutral gray, and whatever nondescript color my brush-cleaning water was. I like the result:

For the yellow nose and tail, I avoided concerns about the blue fade by spraying essentially from the sides of the body, never having the airbrush pointed at either end of the body.

Next, a close-op of the front end:

And the front Bogey:

On the bogeys, I highlighted the aforementioned Anthracite mix with a wash of flat black. The mud splash of the lower parts was Vallejo Air “Dirt” (sold as “Earth” by the same amazon seller. Airbrushed it on thinned 4:1 with Vallejo airbrush thinner.

And the rear:

Grilles/vents were highlighted with black before the fading was done. I like that this results in the grille faces being body color, but the void spaces between remain black.

Along the yellow stripe at the running board, I made some marks in burnt umber and “Dirt” color. I felt this made it more”real” and less antiseptic.

And below are the front and rear plows:

Airbrushed the entirety of both plows with a 1:1 mix of Vallejo Air burnt umber and Mission Models standard rust, thinned 3:1. Then drybrushed an unthinned mix of the same, and some flat black, to create variations of intensity over the surface of the plows.

The only things I might wish to do with it are:

1. Lay a thin bit of Cadmium Orange oil pant over the red sight glasses on the sides of the fuel tank. It makes it a very plausible safety orange.
2. Lay down a thin bit of clear gloss (with a trace of black for grime) running down the fuel tank from some of the filler caps.

 

[TLOC]

Well, my first weathered locomotive is done: A BLI GEVO ET44, CSX, N scale. By way of reminder, here it was of my last update, without a body fade, and just some mild fading of the fuel tank & bogeys. Having had some of my pure white fades result in a “frosted” look to a few cars, I decided to use a technique I read about a amall amount of body color us mixed in with the fade. (So, my fade recipe was: 4parts Mission Models “Anthracite,” 1 part Vallejo Air White:

View attachment 186273

ok, I have no in-progress photos to show. The body fade was 1 part Vallejo Air “Deep Blue” (no, it doesn’t play chess), with 4 parts Vallejo Air White. The Deep Blue was advertised as “Blue Angels Blue” by the seller on Amazon. (If you look at the visible part of another loco at the top of the photo, you can see basis for picking a “Blue Angels” flavor of blue.Net mixture was thinned 4:1 with Vallejo Air airbrush thinner.

Bit of a birds-eye view:

View attachment 186275

For the cab roof, I was worried that I would get a look that I didn’t like with a blue-tinted fade. I was right, so I gently wiped it away with 99% IPA, then made a dirty gray wash of Vallejo Neutral gray, and whatever nondescript color my brush-cleaning water was. I like the result:

View attachment 186278

For the yellow nose and tail, I avoided concerns about the blue fade by spraying essential from the sides of the body, never having the airbrush pointed at either end of the body.

Next, a close-op of the front end:

View attachment 186279

And the front Bogey:

View attachment 186280

On the bogeys, I highlighted the aforementioned Anthracite mix with a wash of flat black. The mud splash of the lower parts was Vallejo Air “Dirt” (sold as “Earth” by the same amazon seller. Airbrushed it on thinned 4:1 with Vallejo airbrush thinner.

And the rear:

View attachment 186281

Grilles/vents were highlighted with black before the fading was done. I like that this results in the grille faces were body color, but the void space between remained black.

Along the yellow stripe at the running board, I made some marks in burnt umber and “Dirt” color. I felt this made it more”real” and less antiseptic.

And below are the front and rear plows:

View attachment 186282

View attachment 186283

Airbrushed the entirety of both plows with a 1:1 mix of Valkejo Air burnt umber and Mission Models standard rust, thinned 3:1. Then drybrushed an unthinned mix of the same, and some flat black, to create variations of intensity over the surface of the plows.

The only thins I might wish to do with it are:

1. Lay a thin bit of Cadmium Orange oil pant over the red sight glasses in the tanks. It makes it a very plausible safety orange
2. Lay down a thin bit of clear gloss (with a trace of black for grime) running down the fuel thank from some of the filler caps.

Looks damn good and thanks for your formulas.

I would add those 2 things you might wish to do. Adding the safety orange to the sight glasses and a gloss for the fuel tank spill will help make things POP even more

Bravo on a very good 1st attempt

 

[C&OMtnMan]

Looks damn good and thanks for your formulas.

I would add those 2 things you might wish to do. Adding the safety orange to the sight glasses and a gloss for the fuel tank spill will help make things POP even more

Bravo on a very good 1st attempt

Thanks, TomO!

By the way, my first three paragraphs were a bit of a muddle - I straightened them out for improved clarity.

Also, that front plow photo is telling me I apparently lost a small part…I never noticed.

 

[PMW]

Well, my first weathered locomotive is done: A BLI GEVO ET44, CSX, N scale. By way of reminder, here it was of my last update, without a body fade, and just some mild fading of the fuel tank & bogeys (my fade recipe for those was: 4parts Mission Models “,” 1 part Vallejo Air White):

View attachment 186273

Having had some of my pure white body fades result in a “frosted” look to a few cars, I decided to use a technique I read about, putting a small amount of body color mixed in with the fade.

Ok, I have no in-progress photos to show. The body fade was 1 part Vallejo Air “Deep Blue” (no, it doesn’t play chess), with 4 parts Vallejo Air White. The Deep Blue was advertised as “Blue Angels Blue” by the seller on Amazon. (If you look at the visible part of another loco at the top of the photo, you can see basis for picking a “Blue Angels” flavor of blue.Net mixture was thinned 4:1 with Vallejo Air airbrush thinner.

Bit of a birds-eye view:

View attachment 186275

For the cab roof, I was worried that I would get a look that I didn’t like with a blue-tinted fade. I was right, so I gently wiped it away with 99% IPA, then made a dirty gray wash of Vallejo Neutral gray, and whatever nondescript color my brush-cleaning water was. I like the result:

View attachment 186278

For the yellow nose and tail, I avoided concerns about the blue fade by spraying essentially from the sides of the body, never having the airbrush pointed at either end of the body.

Next, a close-op of the front end:

View attachment 186279

And the front Bogey:

View attachment 186280

On the bogeys, I highlighted the aforementioned Anthracite mix with a wash of flat black. The mud splash of the lower parts was Vallejo Air “Dirt” (sold as “Earth” by the same amazon seller. Airbrushed it on thinned 4:1 with Vallejo airbrush thinner.

And the rear:

View attachment 186281

Grilles/vents were highlighted with black before the fading was done. I like that this results in the grille faces being body color, but the void spaces between remain black.

Along the yellow stripe at the running board, I made some marks in burnt umber and “Dirt” color. I felt this made it more”real” and less antiseptic.

And below are the front and rear plows:

View attachment 186282

View attachment 186283

Airbrushed the entirety of both plows with a 1:1 mix of Vallejo Air burnt umber and Mission Models standard rust, thinned 3:1. Then drybrushed an unthinned mix of the same, and some flat black, to create variations of intensity over the surface of the plows.

The only things I might wish to do with it are:

1. Lay a thin bit of Cadmium Orange oil pant over the red sight glasses on the sides of the fuel tank. It makes it a very plausible safety orange.
2. Lay down a thin bit of clear gloss (with a trace of black for grime) running down the fuel tank from some of the filler caps.

Looks great. Nice work!

 

[Smudge617]

Well, my first weathered locomotive is done: A BLI GEVO ET44, CSX, N scale. By way of reminder, here it was of my last update, without a body fade, and just some mild fading of the fuel tank & bogeys (my fade recipe for those was: 4parts Mission Models “,” 1 part Vallejo Air White):

View attachment 186273

Having had some of my pure white body fades result in a “frosted” look to a few cars, I decided to use a technique I read about, putting a small amount of body color mixed in with the fade.

Ok, I have no in-progress photos to show. The body fade was 1 part Vallejo Air “Deep Blue” (no, it doesn’t play chess), with 4 parts Vallejo Air White. The Deep Blue was advertised as “Blue Angels Blue” by the seller on Amazon. (If you look at the visible part of another loco at the top of the photo, you can see basis for picking a “Blue Angels” flavor of blue.Net mixture was thinned 4:1 with Vallejo Air airbrush thinner.

Bit of a birds-eye view:

View attachment 186275

For the cab roof, I was worried that I would get a look that I didn’t like with a blue-tinted fade. I was right, so I gently wiped it away with 99% IPA, then made a dirty gray wash of Vallejo Neutral gray, and whatever nondescript color my brush-cleaning water was. I like the result:

View attachment 186278

For the yellow nose and tail, I avoided concerns about the blue fade by spraying essentially from the sides of the body, never having the airbrush pointed at either end of the body.

Next, a close-op of the front end:

View attachment 186279

And the front Bogey:

View attachment 186280

On the bogeys, I highlighted the aforementioned Anthracite mix with a wash of flat black. The mud splash of the lower parts was Vallejo Air “Dirt” (sold as “Earth” by the same amazon seller. Airbrushed it on thinned 4:1 with Vallejo airbrush thinner.

And the rear:

View attachment 186281

Grilles/vents were highlighted with black before the fading was done. I like that this results in the grille faces being body color, but the void spaces between remain black.

Along the yellow stripe at the running board, I made some marks in burnt umber and “Dirt” color. I felt this made it more”real” and less antiseptic.

And below are the front and rear plows:

View attachment 186282

View attachment 186283

Airbrushed the entirety of both plows with a 1:1 mix of Vallejo Air burnt umber and Mission Models standard rust, thinned 3:1. Then drybrushed an unthinned mix of the same, and some flat black, to create variations of intensity over the surface of the plows.

The only things I might wish to do with it are:

1. Lay a thin bit of Cadmium Orange oil pant over the red sight glasses on the sides of the fuel tank. It makes it a very plausible safety orange.
2. Lay down a thin bit of clear gloss (with a trace of black for grime) running down the fuel tank from some of the filler caps.

Really nice job you've done with this, are there more projects like this in the pipeline ?

 

[C&OMtnMan]

Really nice job you've done with this, are there more projects like this in the pipeline ?

Yes. Two more CSX ET44AHs. Both Scaletrains Rivet Counters. Both with factory colors more vivid/darker than this BLI. One is already started. I want to remember to take some side-by-side-by-side photos of all three: this BLI, one Scaletrains complete, and the other Scaletrains still in factory colors.

Going for only light weathering/light grime on all of them.

 

[C&OMtnMan]

Of course now, I just have to get the infernal thing to run again. The airbrushing has gotten acrylic and dullcote onto the contacts. This happened a few weeks ago, and I got it all running again. The electrical connection was so blinky at that time, that I had to reset the decoder. But I eventually restored it to trouble-free operation.

It’s being more stubborn this time. It powers up more or less, and maintains powered up status, but won’t move. Sometimes sound, sometimes none.

I’ve removed the bogeys, and wiped down the copper contact strips on the body with 99% IPA and lacquer thinner, and the little nubs on the bogeys that contact them. I then applied some Conductalube to same.

I lack a good delivery system to get the conductalube down where the axles contact the pickups, without having it run on my freshly weathered trucks.

Greased the gears, too.

 

[Smudge617]

Of course now, I just havecto get the infernal thing to run again. The airbrushing has gotten acrylic and dullcote onto the contacts. This happened a few weeks ago, and I got it all running again. The electrical connection was so blinky at that time, that I had to reset the decoder. But I eventually restored it to trouble-free operation.

It’s being more stubborn this time. It powers up more or less, and maintains powered up status, but won’t move. Sometimes sound, sometimes none.

I’ve removed the bogeys, and wiped down the copper contact strips on the body with 99% IPA and lacquer thinner, and the little nubs on the bogeys that contact them. I then applied some Conductalube to same.

I lack a good delivery system to get the conductalube down where the axles contact the pickups, without having it run on my freshly weathered trucks.

Greased the gears, too.

I usually weather the trucks by hand rather than use an airbrush to avoid that issue.

 

[TLOC]

Of course now, I just havecto get the infernal thing to run again. The airbrushing has gotten acrylic and dullcote onto the contacts. This happened a few weeks ago, and I got it all running again. The electrical connection was so blinky at that time, that I had to reset the decoder. But I eventually restored it to trouble-free operation.

It’s being more stubborn this time. It powers up more or less, and maintains powered up status, but won’t move. Sometimes sound, sometimes none.

I’ve removed the bogeys, and wiped down the copper contact strips on the body with 99% IPA and lacquer thinner, and the little nubs on the bogeys that contact them. I then applied some Conductalube to same.

I lack a good delivery system to get the conductalube down where the axles contact the pickups, without having it run on my freshly weathered trucks.

Greased the gears, too.

Because of the STX contact issue I now when I start the weathering process inspect and test the diesels first. I never used to test run! I work mainly in HO scale and have never seen a STX N scale diesel in person, so my solution may not work in N. The pins and the contact holes on the ScaleTrain diesels I have read were troublesome. I added a Kadee gray washer and made sure the body screw was tight. Since then no issues

 

[CPR Zee]

Well, my first weathered locomotive is done: A BLI GEVO ET44, CSX, N scale. By way of reminder, here it was of my last update, without a body fade, and just some mild fading of the fuel tank & bogeys (my fade recipe for those was: 4parts Mission Models “,” 1 part Vallejo Air White):

View attachment 186273

Having had some of my pure white body fades result in a “frosted” look to a few cars, I decided to use a technique I read about, putting a small amount of body color mixed in with the fade.

Ok, I have no in-progress photos to show. The body fade was 1 part Vallejo Air “Deep Blue” (no, it doesn’t play chess), with 4 parts Vallejo Air White. The Deep Blue was advertised as “Blue Angels Blue” by the seller on Amazon. (If you look at the visible part of another loco at the top of the photo, you can see basis for picking a “Blue Angels” flavor of blue.Net mixture was thinned 4:1 with Vallejo Air airbrush thinner.

Bit of a birds-eye view:

View attachment 186275

For the cab roof, I was worried that I would get a look that I didn’t like with a blue-tinted fade. I was right, so I gently wiped it away with 99% IPA, then made a dirty gray wash of Vallejo Neutral gray, and whatever nondescript color my brush-cleaning water was. I like the result:

View attachment 186278

For the yellow nose and tail, I avoided concerns about the blue fade by spraying essentially from the sides of the body, never having the airbrush pointed at either end of the body.

Next, a close-op of the front end:

View attachment 186279

And the front Bogey:

View attachment 186280

On the bogeys, I highlighted the aforementioned Anthracite mix with a wash of flat black. The mud splash of the lower parts was Vallejo Air “Dirt” (sold as “Earth” by the same amazon seller. Airbrushed it on thinned 4:1 with Vallejo airbrush thinner.

And the rear:

View attachment 186281

Grilles/vents were highlighted with black before the fading was done. I like that this results in the grille faces being body color, but the void spaces between remain black.

Along the yellow stripe at the running board, I made some marks in burnt umber and “Dirt” color. I felt this made it more”real” and less antiseptic.

And below are the front and rear plows:

View attachment 186282

View attachment 186283

Airbrushed the entirety of both plows with a 1:1 mix of Vallejo Air burnt umber and Mission Models standard rust, thinned 3:1. Then drybrushed an unthinned mix of the same, and some flat black, to create variations of intensity over the surface of the plows.

The only things I might wish to do with it are:

1. Lay a thin bit of Cadmium Orange oil pant over the red sight glasses on the sides of the fuel tank. It makes it a very plausible safety orange.
2. Lay down a thin bit of clear gloss (with a trace of black for grime) running down the fuel tank from some of the filler caps.

Very nice dude, you are on your way!

Z

 

[C&OMtnMan]

Because of the STX contact issue I now when I start the weathering process inspect and test the diesels first. I never used to test run! I work mainly in HO scale and have never seen a STX N scale diesel in person, so my solution may not work in N. The pins and the contact holes on the ScaleTrain diesels I have read were troublesome. I added a Kadee gray washer and made sure the body screw was tight. Since then no issues

This one is the BLI, but I do have the first Scaletrains in the works, so we’ll see.

I did get this one working today. I noticed it would stay powered for several minutes at a time while sitting still, and even make sound, but not move. I did another decoder reset, and got to where it would start to move, but stutter and lose power on moving. So, I exercised it for a couple of minutes, during which it would keep power longer, then coupled it to a train. 33 cars. It pulled and stuttered a couple of times, then stayed on. It struggled some with the 33 cars (all my diesels do), so I hooked up my “clean scaletrains to it for more pulling power, and ran them in tandem (but independently controlled) for 25-30 minutes.

So, I pronounced it working.

All I need do now is reprogram the speed table CVs to speed match it to the two Scaletrains. (CV29 has already been set to use the speed table.) Fortunately, I recorded all that stuff. (It was a great posterioral discomfort to go through all that trial and error once to get the BLI to play nice with my Scaletrains; I dern sure don’t want to have to derive all those settings again.)

 

[C&OMtnMan]

“Let’s get down to the main attraction,
With a little less talk, and a lot more action…”

Ok, I’m going to try to be less wordy and leave the talking to the photos, and stop to talk only about what I did different with this engine, or what I learned in the weathering of it.

The promised picture of The Three:

The top, #3440, is factory-fresh from STX, the bottom, #977, is the prior BLI I weathered, and in the middle, #3251,is the STX I just finished that is the subject of this post.

Here it is in a 3/4 view:

My goal was to have it less faded than #977, and about the same amount of road grime. The pictures don’t show it, but a darker base color was achieved.

I did, however, over-grime this: The darker base color made the Vallejo dirt color harder to see, and my dit mix was too heavily thinned to build heavily enough. So, I made a grime coat with less thinner, and it achieved the desired effect, but I sprayed it too high up the locomotive.

View of the front third:

Detail of the front bogey. The design of this bogey lent itself to better highlighting results with the black wash, than did the BLI:

The side view of the rear, showing the grille work:

The grille insert panels on the STXs are factory-painted a light gray. I still did the flat black highlighting. It’s harder too notice though, because the grille mesh is so much finer on the STX.

Speaking of Finer Details 2: I didn’t mask a single window or light on this model. Not a thing. Heresy??? Maybe, but, “here I stand, I can do no other. This thing is crawling with sideview mirrors, separate windshield wiper, etc. - no way were they going to survive the tape coming off. So I used one of those micro-Q-tip brushed dipped in 99% IPA, and swabbed all windows and lights clean.

Speaking of Finer Details 3: so, I was airbrushing on the fade coat, and I saw tiny lumps or bubbles in the paint, and I was so freaking angry; but as it began to dry, I could see patterns emerge: rivets, access panels, Cam-Locks! A wealth of tiny details I couldn’t even see in the glossy factory finish!

Speaking of Finer Details 4: This is a pre-weathering shot:

Yeah. Graduated markings on a sight glass. In N Scale. Yeah, there was no way Ol’ Manny was gonna recover THIS detail if it got painted over, so these, I masked off. The post-weathering view:

Center view/fuel tank:

Two things on this:

1. Like a bonehead, I painted on the fuel overspill (Tamiya clear gloss over a dry-brushing of Mission Models “Anthracite”

2. The cadmium orange oil paint I used for safety orange was too”orangy-orange;” for this, I mixed five parts of Cadmium Red in with it to get the desired color. I’m pleased with the result.

The roof:

Yeah, it’s a little mottled and a bit ugly, but that’s the effect I’m going for: Unlike the blazing sun of the arid regions of the Midwest, CSX engines in West Virginia do a lot of hanging out in the shadows of mountains, and even worse, trees. Trees mean sap and crap. (Crap being the bits of crud that fall from trees, and get in the sap, and get stuck in it, and ugly up a surface really quick. Anyway, having recently started with a clean batch of paintbrush water (unfortunately), I resorted to mixing a small amount of Vallejo Air “Dirt” into Vallejo Air “Neutral Gray” to get a grimy gray wash.

The plows:

Ok, the forum software says I’m bordering on being an outlaw here, so I’ll curtail this post and sum up here in one more.

 

[C&OMtnMan]

The rear plow:

I tell you what, those make-up cables on the STX are very small stuff.

Base flat coat and final sealing wash Dullcote from a bottle, thinned about 0.8 to 1.

FOR FILING IN THE “WHAT I LEARNED” DEPARTMENT ARCHIVE:

I don’t have to thin things nearly as much, except for washes. My dirt layer was just too thin to build, before it would want to run on me. The dirt layer can work just fine at 2:1 thinning, or even 1:1.

Not sure about my fade coat, I want less fade, but I don’t want to go thinner, (presently thinned 4:1). Adding a drop of the blue will be a bluer result, but make the lettering darker, so I’m probably limited to dialing back the flow more. Probably need to keep the 0.050 needle in for the fade, too. Fewer passes for coverage of the model means less buildup.

My airbrush was filthy and constricted before undertaking this. (But I didn’t grasp that until going the final Dullcote on the last engine.) When new, I was using my 0.039 needle. For months, I was doing everything with my 0.050. The cleaning had me throttling down on the paint demand. This increased flow probably contributed to my over-fading the shell. I made fewer passes than I did when fading the first engine, but the cab roof on this engine had more blue to wipe off than the prior engine.

I’m going to revert to the 0.039 for the dirt layer on the final engine; the smaller spray pattern should help me keep it in the bounds I want.

 

[CambriaArea51]

I've never thinned paint. I use a small needle (#1) in Paasche brand airbrush. I've found a few light coats work out better. A lot of times I use 3 different colors (rust, earth, grimy black) and light layers keep the detail from being covered. Dull coat at the end and If powders are add dull coat after to seal them.