How do, everybody - sorry for the large pause between updates, real life has been playing havoc with my modelling time. I did however manage to get a bit of work done here and there on the bridge walkways in an attempt to give them a 'dilapidated wood' look: The colouring was initially a flat earth acrylic, followed by some thinned oil paints - mainly burnt umber and burnt sienna but with a subsequent light covering of titanium yellow and white knocked back with a dry paper towel to leave mere traces behind here and there. Finally - today - I managed to pick out the many securing bolts in a dark brown acrylic, deliberately smudged with a finger to suggest the leaching of rust along the wood grain. The whole thing was then coated with Kleer floor 'wax' - which in truth is nothing of the kind, instead it is a liquid acrylic which when dry protects the paint surface from whatever I choose to apply over the top of it. Edging closer to the day of reckoning with the salt - real life notwithstanding, of course
Thanks all for your most kind comments. To be honest I am torn, between leaving it as is, and pressing on with the next phase. In situations like this I am always reminded of the TV show 'Who wants to be a millionaire', whereby the contestant who started off with nothing suddenly finds him or herself faced with the dilemma of walking away with a sizeable sum or gambling and potentially losing it. But, I need to be true to my original plan, or at least to my original vision of how it would look. I also need to keep true to the thread title, I'd feel a bit of a fraud if I had a thread about salt weathering and then didn't go ahead with it!
Hey folks, it's been a while since I last updated where I am with this - well, real life is somewhat taking the law into its own hands with my leisure time at the moment, and looks like it will be for a while yet. Throwing the Flickr issue into the mix didn't help, and it's only over the past few days that I've been able to resolve that so that I can carry on posting images in a sustainable way. This post, whilst being a genuine update, is also an opportunity for me to prove that the new image hosting site (imgur.com) is up to the task. I've already updated the previous posts to point the photo references to the new place. So, a couple of weekends ago I found myself with some time to kill, and seeing as I had everything I thought I'd need to try this I decided to give it a go. With a due sense of caution, I reckoned it would make sense to try my first attempt on the underside of the bridge. If the technique worked, then great, however if not then at least my mistakes would not normally be visible with the bridge in situ. So that's where I started: I crushed some sea salt to get a broad variation in particle sizes, as well as adding in some ordinary table salt. I sprayed the underside of the bridge with hair-spray to seal the paint layer in, and to give the salt something to adhere to: I then sprayed the underside of the bridge with a mid-green car body spray, and left it in the conservatory to dry: After a couple of hours, I figured the time was right to try and wash the salt off. This proved more difficult than I had anticipated - I suspect my overzealous application of spray paint did too good a job of sealing it all in, salt included! So I had to resort to a stiff hand brush under a running tap: To be honest I wasn't happy with the outcome, however I think my overuse of the rattle-can was the main reason for that. Ah well, lesson learned and all that... The final act for the day was to just try the bridge as it was, in the place where it would sit, and see how it looked: I'm quite pleased with it, I just need to wait patiently now for the next opportunity to present itself so that I can try doing the superstructure - although that will probably be limited to the outboard sides.
I had the same problem Clive, don't use ordinary salt and your right, if the paint is too thick, brushing won't remove it and you need to catch it when the paint is not quite hard! Try scraping it off with a blade held vertically.
Thanks all for your comments. I think I may also have made a mistake with using the hairspray - I've read somewhere that others have tried this technique with warm water sprayed with a house-plant mister. My next attempt will probably seek to emulate that approach.
The plastic modelers I have spoken to in Aust use Vegemite as well as salt for their weathering. Similar method they just dab it on over a base coat, eg silver on aircraft leading edges and propeller blades, then apply the coloured coat and when it dries wash off the Vegemite under warm water. The examples I have seen looked very impressive.
Hi Graeme, yes I've seen instances on You-Tube whereby chipping effects had been achieved by using Marmite, which I guess is the British equivalent. I tried it myself on a model aircraft a while ago, and to be honest I didn't get on with it - it had the annoying habit of remaining fluid for ages, and very readily spreading to other parts of the aircraft which I had not intended to be so covered, merely by my accidentally touching it with my fingers whilst holding the model. I dare say with perseverance and time things could improve, however right now I find myself in short supply of both!
Long time no hear Clive I hope things on the S&CGRly are fine and waiting for better weather to continue.
Hi Paul, yes long time indeed! All is well, but the winter weather tends to put a stop to outdoor operations here. There is a replacement bus service in place for the duration though!