Thanks Joe . I will be adding some weathering powders and chalks to the parts too. I'm having a lot of fun with this technique .

Mike,

That effect looks great. Your first time is a huge success!

      I didn't apply hairspray to these parts only the salt treatment . I just wanted the chipping effect not the fading . So after the water that I sprinkled the salt on dried I airbrushed the topcoat of grey . After the paint dried I removed the salt . I had to use a small wire brush on some spots . I'm happy with the results for my first try at it . I did learn that next time I need to put on more salt , much more. Anyhow here' what it looks like.  

Man, I cringe when I think about doing any modifications to my USAT Western Pacific F-3 A/B units.

With exception to Airwire battery conversion of course....

I didn't see those but the hobby shop had some acrylic rust washes that I airbrushed on.

Have you looked into Camo colors ?

   I rebuilt the side frame journal boxes so it is on to the next step . I have wanted to try the salt / hairspray weathering technique for a while now so here was my chance. I took the four side frames , the fuel tank , and side frame stirrups and painted them with 6 different shades of rusty looking paint . I tried to make the colors blotchy , with some parts darker and some other parts lighter shades of rust. I also used two different shades of black (gloss black and grimy black) . After I was pleased with this step I over sprayed the parts with Krylon Matt finish to seal in the rust paint. After the Krylon dried I whetted the parts with a spray bottle and sprinkled sea salt and table salt over the parts. That where i'm at right now. I'm going to let the parts dry and then over spray the parts with hair spray. After that dries i'll paint the parts with the grey final color and then the fun will begin. If I don't like the effect at least it will be on these small parts and I can re-strip the paint and re do it .

Looking forward to this thread!

Haven't done the salt but I have been using hairspray over all my chalk weathering for a long time....works great.

Mike, FYI. The USA F3 sideframes have the brake cylinders mounted outside the center of the axles. They should be just inside the center of the axles like their GP's. I think they did this for clearance. It is a different casting on the F3's. I ordered the GP castings for all my F units and set them in the correct location but tighter to the sideframes. That solved the clearance problem. Take a look at some F3 and GP photos and you will see what i mean about the location.

F3

http://www.usatrains.com/r22250trucks.html

GP

http://www.usatrains.com/r22200trucks.html

  Okay now were gettin somewhere ! Thanks for your help guys.

I have a market?

I mean, you have my market?

You have....

oh, skip it.

from the freight shed, I right click the image I want then go to the reply page, and click on the icon right smack in the middle above the fonts  part of the top, a little "mountain and sun in a box, click on that , then click on the source box, right click to insert the image, I always make sure its 800 pixels in the dimensions, then enter. After that I add my wording to describe what I am showing

I helps me when I add more than 1 picture to after the picture has been added to click enter to start a new line where the picture will go I dont know if that is right or not but seems to do fine for me.. Went thru these steps to add this picture

Joe , can you walk me through the picture posting procedure ? I can't get the picture from my freight shed to here.

Thanks for the heads up. Just paid for a pair. I think the one on mine is on the way out. Even allowing for the shipping rates it's worthwhile rather than having a nice loco sitting dead. Got it for £100 NIB 10 years ago, so I'm still ahead of the game on that one. One of my favourites.

Sage advice  I would say!

Greg

For those in need, Bachmann has listed the drive axle and gear back in stock on the parts web site. I would not waste time ordering as I doubt they will be there long.

Greg - I agree with the logic of adding weight. I went the added spring route at first because it was quick and easy. I didn't stretch the spring, but rather added a stiffer spring around the plunger. This worked fine to get me through my spring switches, but when I went to Bob's I realized that that shifting weight to the pilot wheels unloaded the drivers causing it to slip with just a small load on Bob's long curving grade.  He has no spring swithces so I removed my external spring and it climbed the grade as it should.

I've not run it at home since. I need to look around and see what I can use for weight. I have plenty of lead, but all of it large chunks. I'll need to cut some off and then experiment to find the right amount.

Most people favor John's solution over Kevin's.

John's keeps the effect to just the pilot truck, while Kevin's, by simple physics, has to reduce the weight on the drivers a bit.

Much easier to tune weight on the pilot truck than balance downforce on the pilot truck vs. reduced pulling power.

Greg

Stretch the spring in the plunger that holds the C-19's pilot down. It doesn't take much of a stretch to add just enough extra pressure to work its way through spring switches. It's a balancing act--the spring on the switch has to be just strong enough to hold the points in place, but not so strong as to require unrealistic weight for a loco's pilot wheel to push through.

Later,

K