Tips on weathering a tressle bridge

[nosplinters]

Hi all,

I just put together a tressle bridge and I'm wondering what the best way or at least what works best for ya'll as far as weathering it?

I airbrushed the bridge with some matte acrylic and then once that was dry I tried something purely out of curiousity and I lightly sprayed the bridge with water and then placed drops of Polyscale rust acrylic and let it drip down and then dry. The rust looks somewhat good but more dirty then anything else.

I'm wondering how others have done the task of weathering a bridge so that it looks like it's been beaten by the elements for 100 years. I'd like to have the thing rusty and most likely areas of paint peeling away.

thoughts?

Thanks
-Ed

 

[CNR Glen]

I'm assumig that this is a steel bridge, not a wooden trestle? Most steel bridges are kept painted on a regular basis since most railroads don't like them rusting and falling down when a train crosses them. I have pictures of abandonned steel trestles that are still black even aftertheir last paint job back in the sixies as well there is a red oxide promer underneath the black as further rust protection.
If you do want rust I use tube acrylics from micheals to simulate rust. The tube paints dry with a texture that simulates the rough rust look. I use Burnt Umber and burnt Sienna for rust as they are a lighter and darker colors to show both recent and aged rusting.

 

[tankist]

Ed, you forgot to include picture. quite needed to judge the results...

 

[Selector]

If it is a steel trestle, you can weather it with a wash of acrylic paint, but not the wash itself...you use a dry or wet brush technique.

Mix "Burnt Umber", a small bit of red, and a small bit of yellow. We'll say four parts burnt umber, one part red, and one part yellow. You want a rust colour.

To that, add about three parts water and mix well.

Then, with a tiny artist's brush, dip it in the mix and dry much of it on a paper towel. Next, wipe the brush tip down flanges and rivet lines. Do only one wipe and let it dry for the next hour or so. Be patient!

How does it look? Need more with proper lighting on the bridge? Then stir up the mix and repeat. You will need at least two coats in total, but sometimes you'll need a third and fourth.

Here is the result in my case. I had to teach myself all of this.

 

[kenw]

thinning the (water based) paint with isopropyl alcohol helps it wick and wet surfaces better. The iso will evaporate quicker. I usually use many very thin coats to build it up, it adds variation and keeps it from being overdone.

 

[nosplinters]

thanks for the great info guys.

I'll toss a pic up here this weekend once I find a clean bench area.

One other thing I thought about while heading home from work is to stop by one of our nearby bridges and take some snapshots (dunno why I didn't think of this earlier...impatient I guess).

I'm building my very first layout and this bridge was on sale so I couldn't resist. My main problem is trying to figure out where to put it as I'm thinking I'm going to go with a cross-breed layout and have half of it logging and the other half 1950's. The bridge may be a good divider between the two. I'll take some pics of the layout once I get the track down...and I'm also going with code-65 (I scrapped my code-80 as I like the looks of the 65 more).

thanks again!
-Ed

 

[ChevelleSSguy]

If you go to Railpictures.net and go to the lower left of thier home page under categories and click on Bridges/trestles. You will find TONS of great prototype pictures that will help you figure out what colors to use.