I have been working on this for a while. Well, off and on for a while. I couldn’t find a color combination that I liked. Nothing looked like rusty steel. They always ended up just looking like they were painted brown or a shade of brown. Until, last night. I think I finally got the color I was going for.

The pictures aren’t the best, it was overcast this morning.

You can’t really see them very well on the car. Next time the sun pops out I’ll take some better pictures.

I ended up making rust. I put some steel wool in a cup of water. Once the water evaporates I had rust in the cup. I took that and ground it down into a powder. I then added some of that rust powder to my brown oxide acrylic paint I was using. Mixed it all together with a couple drops of water. Seems it gave me the right shade I was looking for.

I’ll try and get some better pictures on a brighter day. Overall, I’m fairly pleased with it!

It looks very good Matt. Nice job.(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

Looks great, Matt.

If you want to try to get some texture to the rust, try crushing the steel wool to where it has some small pieces in it. Of course with texture, you will have to brush, not spray, but it will give you more depth to the rust. Probably not needed on trucks and couplers, but works well to show something “rusting out”.

Matt,

I have been using a technique I believe Bruce Chandler or John Radder mentioned. I spray the trucks/wheels with a darker gray/brown shade, then while it is still a bit wet, overspray with a dusting of an orangish brown color. Depending on how heavy handed you are with the dusting it generates a sort of mottled/muted/subtle color variation. Takes a bit of practice, or in my case, I just accept it as it drys - no two trucks or side frames are ever the same.

Bob C.

Thanks guys! When I get home from work I’ll see if I can get some better pictures. The sun never did break the clouds today and they are calling for rain this afternoon.

Joe, I’d actually already done that. I didn’t like how it turned out. Well, I liked it…just not for these bethgons. I think that rusty of a look will look good on a box car I plan on doing.

Bob, I don’t think any of mine are the same either. lol. I don’t own an airbrush, so everything I do is with different size brushes.

Nice, Matt

That looks really great Matt. I like the idea. Are you spraying through an airbrush?

Bob “IA3R#7” Cope said:

Matt,

I have been using a technique I believe Bruce Chandler or John Radder mentioned. I spray the trucks/wheels with a darker gray/brown shade, then while it is still a bit wet, overspray with a dusting of an orangish brown color. Depending on how heavy handed you are with the dusting it generates a sort of mottled/muted/subtle color variation. Takes a bit of practice, or in my case, I just accept it as it drys - no two trucks or side frames are ever the same.

Bob C.

I think it was me. I use Kryklon Ruddy Brown primer followed by a dusting of satin black shot from 2 feet or more away (wind optional). It doesn’t matter if the base coat is wet or dry - works either way.

John, I do that same, but I use the flat black, I used to use the ultra flat black, but I cant seam to find it anymore.

Matt, I think you nailed it. This morning when I saw this picture on my phone, I had to look twice to make sure it was a model.

I go back and forth between flat and satin. I really liked that ultra-flat. I think they quit making it. As mentioned above, depending on the black spray you can get a variety of colors…

Sorry for the thread-drift Matt. Your entire package does look great…

Thanks John, was trying to make sure to credit the deserving party, just the ole bio’puter is gettin slow…

Thanks everybody! I sure do appreciate all the comments. Especially coming from such an advanced set of modelers! This is my first time weathering any trucks. So there was a lot of trial and error before I got this color.

Daktah, I’m just using a small paint brush. I don’t have a air brush.

Took some more pictures when I got home this afternoon.

The top truck is just the standard brown oxide. The bottom truck is brown oxide with rust mixed in.

brown oxide on the left. brown oxide plus rust on the right.

I still have some more weathering to do on the cars. I’ve noticed I managed to skip the bottom 4 steps on every car. At least I’m consistent. lol. I still need to weather the couplers and coupler box’s too. Then I want to weather the coal loads. They look to plasticky(is that a word) to me.

Then I have another bethgon that I’ve not even started on yet. Plus about 8 or other cars I’d planned on doing. lol.

Once the last bethgon is done I’ll probably get 4 more. Not sure if I’ll get 4 more silver or go with black this time. Or mix and match. We’ll see.

Great looking cars. I like the standard brown trucks.

When I dirty up wheels and trucks I use either a primer red or a brown and give them a bit more than a dusting then depending on what type of car it is they get another dusting of black or lite grey. Weathering is fun.

Matt, both look great. Remember, even two trucks manufactured from the same batch will weather differently depending on which is stored where, oils in the casting sand (happens sometimes) and a whole host of other factors. If they are slightly different, that is a good thing. Keep up the fine modeling.

And I have seen mismatched trucks on the same cars, and mismatched wheels. So the trucks and wheels do not have to match, since railroads swap out defective/damaged trucks and wheels all the time.

I have found the same situation on my railroad. I have an Aristo car with Aristo wheels in one truck and USA wheels in the other. I wish I could remember why and how that happened. I am sure it was a swap of something defective over the years.

Thanks guys!!

I may just leave the standard brown one’s alone. The more I look at that last pic, I like the varying color. I don’t want them all to be identical. I hadn’t even crossed my mind about parts being swapped out.