Reassembly
After everything was dry I peeled off the Micro mask and removed all the parts from there various different holders. Then I put everything back together again. As I intend to lightly weather the locomotive, I intentionally put all the pieces together without oiling anything yet.
I’m a little behind with the smokebox front as I haven’t had a chance to paint it yet. I just put it on the locomotive to cover the big gaping opening in the front of the boiler.
Here are a couple of shots of the assembled locomotive prior to any weathering:
And here’s a final picture of the repaired skyline casing:
Weathering
I decided that I wanted to apply some light weathering to the locomotive as was representative of later years in the daylight paint scheme. I used a few different methods to weather the locomotive. First I sprayed the lower frame and wheels with a light coat of Floquil dust to simulate dirt kicked up from the rails. To assure even coverage I sprayed the dust coat with the motor hooked up and the drivers spinning.
I brushed on a light wash of roughly 5 to 1 diluted Polly Scale oily black on the rods and valve gear. The wash is thin enough that it takes several passes to get the desired effect. I just kept brushing more on until I achieved the effect I wanted.
For the rest of the weathering I used various weathering powers made by Bragdon Enterprises. This is a nice product to use as it’s easy to control the overall effect. The key to using the powders is to always apply them with vertical strokes. This gives the effect of the streaks running down the boiler.
Lastly I oiled the valve gear and rods. After a little running the oil tends to spread around on the moving parts giving a very realistic looking effect.
Page 9 - Last updated April 19, 2004