Ballast Cleaning Train - Part 17 (SLA Resin 3d Print Version)

Spent some time viewing tutorials on weathering to learn a method for the two chassis.

First stage was grey primer even though one recommendation was not to bother because the plastic base will take acrylic paints and the more layers of paint that are applied the more the definition of fine details will be lost.

However, the next layer was not acrylic. It was gloss black car paint that I had to hand and this needs a primer. The finish gave the models an ex works pristine appearance.

Before applying weathering a spray of matt varnish is necessary to dull the gloss and give good adhesion for the weathering layers. The varnish I purchased was Pebeo Auxiliary Matt Varnish which, due to a mix up, was not the one I intended to buy. I intended to buy a rattle can but this one is for brush application and has a white appearance in the bottle. At first I was not at all sure if it would be suitable. Anyway I mixed 50:50 with water and sprayed a test piece. It quickly dried giving the required matt finish and also suppressed the black intensity to a dark grey which is also what I wanted.

The first weathering layer was a wet on wet application of watery mid grey paint. What this means is water is brushed over the model and then paint applied which runs into crevices for highlighting and gives a mottled effect on flat areas.

The light grey areas in the photo are where masking tape has been removed. Those areas are for gluing the superstructure in place. 

The next layer is various coloured, scraped pastel sticks (powders) brushed onto the chassis sides. This final effect was quite pleasing until I sprayed with an artists fixer compound to seal the powders. It glossed the surface and suppressed the powder colours! I remedied with more powder covering and left it like that. Not quite as good as the pre fixer coating.

The Generator Wagon has footboards painted the same colour as the superstructure. The closest match to that seen in prototype photographs that I found was Railmatch 2304 Early Warning Yellow. However, once applied it looked too bright so a wash of watered down white was brushed over. It is still not right. But, who is to say old photographs accurately portray colour anyway.

To Part 18.

To the beginning.

Read about the SLA (stereolithography) resin 3D printer here.

Read about the FDM model here.