I want to do some weathering on some HO train cars with ink but I have no idea how much ink and mineral spirits should mix in a 4oz bottel.
This thread from a few years back
Most people use alcohol as the vehicle though - don't recall mineral spirits being mentioned before.
Skip the mineral spirits and use alcohol. Mineral spirits is a strong solvent and would probably ruin paint and plastic.
I use India ink diluted in isopropyl alcohol (70% will work or add a bit of distilled water if you have stronger dilution of alcohol) start out with just a little India ink, like a half teaspoon to about 6 oz. alcohol. You can always make it stronger but once you apply it too heavy it is tough to lighten it up.
The porosity of the finish will make for varied results, too. Plaster and wood will soak it up and appear darker, glossy surfaces wil almost resist it completely. Most freight cars are flat paint finishes and will take ink staining pretty well. It really helps bring out the details.
Experiment on some of your "less pristine" cars first...
Good Luck, Ed
I'd suggest making an even smaller batch for test purposes. Use a clean one-ounce or half-ounce paint bottle and fill it with 70% isopropyl alcohol. Add 3 or 4 drops of India ink, shake well, then try it on a piece of wood or even paper. Increase the amount of ink by a few drops until you get results you like. For heavier weathering effects, add even more. Many modellers keep 3 or 4 pre-mixed bottles on hand (labelled, of course) to suit whatever job requires such weathering.
I'd often heard of weathering with India ink, but had never tried it until I built the structure shown below.I used a razor saw to distress lengths of Evergreen .030" strip (various widths), then brush-painted them in several different colours, staining each with brushed-on dilute India ink:
These were then cut to length on a NWSL Chopper :
...and cemented to this loading dock:
Wayne
gmpullman Skip the mineral spirits and use alcohol. Mineral spirits is a strong solvent and would probably ruin paint and plastic. I use India ink diluted in isopropyl alcohol (70% will work or add a bit of distilled water if you have stronger dilution of alcohol) start out with just a little India ink, like a half teaspoon to about 6 oz. alcohol. You can always make it stronger but once you apply it too heavy it is tough to lighten it up. The porosity of the finish will make for varied results, too. Plaster and wood will soak it up and appear darker, glossy surfaces wil almost resist it completely. Most freight cars are flat paint finishes and will take ink staining pretty well. It really helps bring out the details. Experiment on some of your "less pristine" cars first... Good Luck, Ed
Ummm, actually, alcohol is what is generally used to to strip the paint off of rolling stock, but 70% alcohol won't bother it too much.
Mineral spirits mixes like oil with water, and will generally not stick to the paint and make the ink likely not as well.
Just picking a nit.....you're right....alcohol is what is used as a vehicle, but its because the ink and paint are water based substances that can be thinned with alcohol, and not solvent based substances which can be thinned with mineral spirits.
- Douglas
Yes, it's true that alcohol will strip paint, some quicker than others. I have some 99% isopropyl and it took me two weeks of soaking and scrubbing with a nylon brush to get Tuscan red off a PRR Walthers car and with the same 99% it only took me an hour to take the paint off a Bachmann E-33 electric.
Of course, with the ink wash you are expecting the alcohol to evaporate quickly leaving the pigment behind rather than soaking the car in it.
I was just cautioning the OP to be careful with whatever VOC he chooses. Mineral spirits cover a broad category: naptha, turpentine substitute, Stoddard Solvent and others. This can probably attack plastic and paint a bit more aggressively than alcohol.
Thanks, Ed
Hello All,
In the recent issue of the NMRA Magazine, May 2015; pg. 32, there is an article on weathering a RTR wooden reefer by Mont Switzer.
Among the techniques discussed is the use of acrylic artist's paste and Windex®.
To summarize; Windex® is used to thin the acrylic paste, in this case black, to a light wash and then applied using various size brushes depending on the area to be weathered.
If the wash was too dark straight Windex® was used to remove the excess, the wash was thinned with more Windex® and reapplied until the desired result was achieved without harming the factory applied paint.
I suppose you could substitute ink for the artist's paste, which would require less Windex® to thin.
As far as I know Windex® is water, ammonia, alcohol, a surfactant and coloring. I found a formula online for glass cleaner:
Hope this helps.
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"