Painting, Lining and Weathering

Discussion in 'Pulhams Puffers' started by Rob Pulham, Jun 25, 2020.

  1. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

    Messages:
    3,881
    Likes Received:
    4,192
    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2017
    Rather than clutter up Paul's excellent how to build a van thread with further thread drift into painting and lining I said that I would create a thread for it and then post up a link on Paul's thread to direct people here.
     
    Andy_Sollis, Gary and York Paul like this.
  2. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

    Messages:
    3,881
    Likes Received:
    4,192
    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2017
    We will start off with the same three photos and I will describe how I did each stage to achieve the end result.
    [​IMG]



    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Before getting into the nitty gritty I will start with the basics.

    All of my rolling stock painting and weathering is done with acrylic paints. These are almost exclusively from the Vallejo: Model Air, Model Color and Game Color ranges. I also use Vallejo's thinners to thin them having found that other brands of thinner (Tamiya X20) worked fine with some but curdled others leaving the mixture unusable.

    I say almost exclusively because I also use Games Workshop Chaos Black sometimes.

    Originally I bought from the Vallejo Model Air range but quickly realised (being a Yorkshireman) that thinning down the equivalent colour in the Model Color/Game Color ranges was much more economical. The "Bauxite/Red Oxide used on this particular van and the other in view in the first photo is from the Game Color range and is called "Dark Fleshtones"

    In terms of consistency when thinning for spraying, I thin, both acrylics and enamels to the consistency of milk. By that I mean that if you have a glass of milk and slosh some up the side of the glass, it slides back down but leaves a thin residue on the glass. For mixing I use some cheap plastic medicine cups that I bought on eBay a few years ago and mix with the multi coloured plastic glue spreaders that are sold for children.

    The model was primed using Vallejo Red Oxide Primer. I have a few different colours of Vallejo Primes and I use different ones depending on what the finished colour of the vehicle is to be. At the minute I have primers in light grey, dark grey, red oxide and black.
     
    Andy_Sollis, Gary, jakesdad13 and 3 others like this.
  3. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

    Messages:
    3,881
    Likes Received:
    4,192
    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2017
    For spraying I have an Iwata compressor and an Iwata Neo double action gravity feed airbrush. I also have a couple of cheap Chinese copies that I use on occasions.

    Originally I had a cheap and cheerful compressor that didn't have a tank and as a consequence pulsed when spraying that combined with the cheapo air brushes left my spraying as a very unsatisfactory experience. It was only after my compressor jumped of the bench and smashed itself that I took advice and bought the Iwata compressor and air brush and from that point on my spraying improved 10 fold and I have never looked back. - the Cheapo copies now work fine with a decent compressor.

    The other thing to note about spraying with acrylics is that they work better with the thicker needle due to the amount of pigment in the paint.

    Most air brushes come with a 0.3mm needle as standard (as do my cheapo's) but along with the compressor I was advised to buy an airbrush with a 0.5mm needle if I wanted to spray acrylics successfully. The advice was good as the results show.
     
    Gary, jakesdad13, Kimbo and 2 others like this.
  4. paul_l

    paul_l Staff Member Administrator

    Messages:
    9,848
    Likes Received:
    5,902
    Joined:
    Dec 5, 2015
    I have purchased a bottle of Vallejo Grey primer but yet to try it, up until now I have used either Humbrol Grey or Tamiya grey primer, there must be a bit of yorkshire blood in my family tree (or living in Scotland for 36 years), but at £12 for 200 ml against £2 for 14 ml of Humbrol your getting 14 tins of paint for the price of 6 tins - I can live with that :thumbs:

    Looking forward to the rest of this thread.

    Paul
     
    jakesdad13, Rob Pulham and Kimbo like this.
  5. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

    Messages:
    3,881
    Likes Received:
    4,192
    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2017
    The only thing to remember about Vallejo primer is that it's not quite as hard wearing as an enamel based one.
     
  6. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

    Messages:
    3,881
    Likes Received:
    4,192
    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2017
    Getting back to the painting of these models.

    I sprayed first all over with Vallejo red oxide primer and then the body was sprayed with Vallejo Game Color Dark Fleshtones once this had dried overnight I gave the body a coating of Johnsons Klear floor polish to seal the acrylic coat.

    Then I masked of the underframe with Tamiya masking tape and sprayed it black using Vallejo model color black.
    When I mask I put thin (6 or 10mm) strip of Tamiya tape along the edges that I want to mask. In this case the bottom of the body. Then I take a sheet of paper (I save old letters and utility bills etc for the purpose) and stick a strip of normal household masking tape to it over lapping the edge by around 4mm or so depending on how wide the Tamiya tape is. I then stick this to the Tamiya tape. I fold the sheet of paper up over the roof and around the ends and stick more household masking to fasten it together. This makes the much more expensive Tamiya tape go a lot further.

    Once the coat is on the unmasked area I unstick the tape on the body and get the masking off as soon as possible. This way there is less chance of the tape pulling off the paint that it's masking when the paint that you have sprayed last dries fully and sticks the masking tape to the body.

    Better to pull it off as soon as possible and remask if necessary for further coats than risk ripping the paint off.
     
    York Paul, Gary and jakesdad13 like this.
  7. jakesdad13

    jakesdad13 Staff Member Moderator

    Messages:
    4,535
    Likes Received:
    2,071
    Joined:
    Dec 14, 2015
    When you seal the paint with Klear, do you brush or spray it? It seems quite thick, if you spray it what do you use for a thinner?
    I have some Klear and like the idea as using it to seal paint layers, Mike Trice uses it between coats on his teak coach paint jobs. I'm going to use it on my GCR coach.

    Cheers, Pete.
     
  8. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

    Messages:
    3,881
    Likes Received:
    4,192
    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2017
    Hi Pete,

    I find that it sprays without being let down but I have thinned it (before I realised that I didn't need to) with IPA
     
    jakesdad13 likes this.
  9. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

    Messages:
    3,881
    Likes Received:
    4,192
    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2017
    Once the paint had dried thoroughly I again painted the body with several coats of Klear. When sprayed Klear doesn't seem to develop the shine that it does when brushed on so you get a more mat than gloss finish.

    The next stage was to mix up a predominantly grey muddy mixture from Vallejo Model Color Dark Blue Grey, Saddle brown and Flat Earth (I also use Flat Earth as the brown for LNER None Passenger Coach Stock Brown and for coaches that had been in lake prior to grouping).

    This was brush painted liberally over the body and underframe - you get an idea of the colour from the underframe. Then while still wet I used cotton buds soaked in dilute IPA (approx 60:40 IPA to Water) to rub off the excess much as you might using a bud soaked in thinners to remove enamel weathering.

    IPA happily dissolves acrylics so you need to proceed with care that you don't push right through the paint work back to the plastic body - diluting it helps to prevent this. The coats of Klear also help to preserve the paint layer but the IPA does soften it allowing the muddy weathering layer to fuse with the Klear and leaving the grubby appearance shown in the photos.

    If you don't have access to Klear or IPA I have had similar results when using water based household matt varnish (Ronseal in my case) and methylated spirits. Meths is far more aggressive than IPA so I found that you need to dilute it much more and I use around a third Meths to two thirds water.

    I am not sure whether it makes any difference or not but I also use deionised water. I use it for no other reason than I have some that I bought for another purpose but didn't use.
     
    jakesdad13, Gary and York Paul like this.
  10. Gary

    Gary Wants more time for modelling.... Staff Member Administrator

    Messages:
    7,316
    Likes Received:
    3,847
    Joined:
    Dec 5, 2015
    Nice work Rob. IPA comes in handy with weathering models. I use it as a bed for painting weathering powders onto parts, providing you have clear coated the parts you wish to weather.
    Your models have come up beautifully. :thumbs::thumbs::thumbs:

    Cheers, Gary.
     
    jakesdad13 and Rob Pulham like this.
  11. Kimbo

    Kimbo Staff Member Moderator

    Messages:
    2,956
    Likes Received:
    2,227
    Joined:
    Dec 13, 2015
    Will be giving this method a try out Rob, thanks for sharing. :thumbup:
     
  12. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

    Messages:
    3,881
    Likes Received:
    4,192
    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2017
    It turns out that by remarkable coincidence when weathering these I took a few photos during the process which I discovered while looking for something else earlier. - I was weathering the fruit van and a 12 ton van at the same time so the photos are of both but hopefully they will help to show IMG_6658.JPG IMG_6659.JPG IMG_6662.JPG IMG_6663.JPG
     
    jakesdad13 likes this.
  13. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

    Messages:
    3,881
    Likes Received:
    4,192
    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2017
    And the other one... IMG_6656.JPG IMG_6660.JPG IMG_6661.JPG
     
    jakesdad13 likes this.
  14. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

    Messages:
    3,881
    Likes Received:
    4,192
    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2017
    Moving from weathering to lining, I will declare that I am no expert at lining but I have managed to line a few things successfully.

    As I mentioned on Paul's thread, I have a Peter Spoorer Easyliner Pen set and I also have some bow pens and spring bow compasses.
    [​IMG]

    I have been really very fortunate in my acquisition of the drawing instruments. First I found a Haff set on eBay a few years ago with a starting price of £5. By remarkable good fortune it ended on an evening when England were playing in the European cup so I got the set for the opening bid. At the time I had been gifted a £5 voucher by eBay for something so I ended up getting the set for £2.99 postage. Then around 3 years ago I was having a rummage in the many miscellaneous boxes on the Executor and Trustee stand at Telford and found a pair of Haff spring bow compasses for £8 so I bought them as a second set. Then to put icing on a very well decorated cake I was given a second Haff Bow pen which is slightly different from my original purchase and all are nice to use.

    [​IMG]

    I do have a case for them but they generally live with my enamel paints in small plastic set of drawers.

    I also have a couple of other bow pens, one of which is a Kern pen that had a broken handle so was another cheap eBay buy. I repaired it with a length of brass tube. Having honed it, I find this to be my most comfortable pen to use.

    [​IMG]
    This is the Kern pen along with some home made guides that I used to help me line this

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Before embarking on any lining I always have a practice first and at one of the show I bought a scrap etched coach side for a couple of quid and sprayed it will halfords spray paint to give me something to practice on once I have done it I quickly clean it off with thinners or IPA depending on what I was using to line with.

    [​IMG]
     
  15. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

    Messages:
    3,881
    Likes Received:
    4,192
    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2017
    This was also lined with a bow pen.

    [​IMG]

    While this was lined with the easy liner pen

    [​IMG]
     
  16. Rob Pulham

    Rob Pulham Happily making models Staff Member Administrator Feature Contributor

    Messages:
    3,881
    Likes Received:
    4,192
    Joined:
    Sep 15, 2017
    To give all you guys working in 4mm some hope, here's a 4mm Comet Period III full brake coach that I built and lined - it was my last 4mm build before moving up to 7mm (I did a similar albeit it period I 7mm coach in full panelled lining at the same time).

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Just for good measure I scratch built and interior in brass for it too...
     
    jakesdad13 likes this.

Share This Page