I spent a few hours last night getting started on a 3" by 16.5" dock for my layout and was wondering what some of the better weathering / painting options available for getting from the base basswood, balsa wood, dowels apperence to a more aged look. Is there away to paint and age the wood after the fact without having to re-glue the dock? I saw a suggestion on pacific coast air lines for using kills primer and india ink wash for a silver grey apperence prior to building and was wondering if I'd made a mistake building first and then looking up how to paint and age it. I scored the dowels a bit with a razor saw to give them a more rugged surface but aside from that I'd only glued some of the base structure together.
Thanks
CP
A lot of people who build craftsman type kits as well as scratch builders, stain all the wood prior to building. On the last kit I built, I used the following stain.
Use a 20 oz. jar with a sealable lid. I used an old spagetti sauce jar. Fill the jar with about 20 oz of water. Then, add the following approximate amounts:
1/2 teaspoon of black india ink
1 teaspoon of Poly S Roof Brown
1 teaspon of Poly S Oily Black
1 1/4 teaspoon Poly S railroad Tie Brown
Mix it all up real good and pour the stain over the wood which has been placed in a flat bottom pan. Leave the wood in the stain for a couple of days, and agitate the stain from time to time. The longer it stays in the mixture the darker it will look. This produces a greyish brown color, so if you wanted a darker color you could use all roof brown instead of the RR tie brown. After staining, lay the wood out on paper towels and let it dry. You can then touch up cut ends with alcohol and india ink. Seems like a lot of trouble, but it works really well.
I use a simple India Ink in alcohol wash. This gives a gray color. Use only a bit of ink, and repeat to get a darker shade. I have found that the wood used makes a big difference in how it comes out, but in general I'm happy with it. Another method, which I've used on balsa strips, is to mix a few drops of India Ink into some white stain, and brush that on.
I prefer to do the coloring before I glue the pieces together. Even if you're careful, you may still get glue on the surface, even if it's just around a joint. The glue will not take any kind of stain, so it suddenly stands out. If you stain and then assemble, any bits of surface glue will be far less noticeable.
This is Weimer's Mill from Branchline Trains, done with a simple India Ink wash:
This is a deck I've built around an old bar. I think the mill came out nicer, with a better color, but this is still about the way I want it for now.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
There's this.http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/158-1I haven't used it, but I have used their "Blacken it" product and I'm real happy with it.When weathering wood with with stains and washes, you should do the wood first and then assemble so you don't have glue spots that won't accept the stain. (learned that the hard way)