Roof Weathering: what colours and how?

[Fergmiester]

I've been assembling buildings as of late and have tried to give them the weathered look. This has been a bit of a let down as I'm not getting the right colour but more importantly I'm not getting the right streaking. Any suggestions

Thanks

Fergie

[orsonroy]

What sort of buildings, and what sort of roofs?

Flat: asphalt, roll roofing, tar, shingle, pea gravel?

Peaked: slate, shake, tile, roll roofing, asphalt shingle (and what color?), tin, steel, corrugated, copper?

And how old is each roof, and what's it on? (industrial or residential?)

Each roof style will require different guidelines. We need more info, please!

[ndbprr]

Asphalt shingles don't weather too much. They just degrade and curl with age.
Tarred roofs tend to get lighter but not streaky. They also tend to get depressions that hold puddles of water. Some patched areas that are black help show the age of the remaining areas.
Corrugated sheets tend to rust at the edges whcih bleeds into the surface areas.
Check some of the scenery books regarding dry brushing. It is a technique that works really well for weathering.

[Anonymous]

For flat roofs,
go to the hardware store and get some sand paper, some for a rough stone roof and the black coarse stuff for a tar roof.

[Fergmiester]

QUOTE: Originally posted by orsonroy

What sort of buildings, and what sort of roofs?

Flat: asphalt, roll roofing, tar, shingle, pea gravel?

Peaked: slate, shake, tile, roll roofing, asphalt shingle (and what color?), tin, steel, corrugated, copper?

And how old is each roof, and what's it on? (industrial or residential?)

Each roof style will require different guidelines. We need more info, please!

Good Point

one roof, Blairline General Store is tar paper (I really like Chucks ideas) another is a Branchline house kit, another the Walther's Midstate Marble Cmpany and finally the Rix Store front and upstairs offices.

In short; shingles; tar paper, metal and tar.

[Big_Boy_4005]

Welcome back Fergie. You on dry land or just in range?

For HO the sand paper doesn't have to be too coarse. I think a 600 grit black would make good tar paper. For a flat hot tar roof covered in stone, maybe some N scale ballast?

Normal shingles are a little tougher, because you don't necessarily want to get into individual tabs, that would get tedious. You want to give the impression though. Maybe masking tape, row after row all the way up. There might be some plastic sheets available from Evergreen, Plasturct or Faller. Check the Walthers catalog.

What kind of metal? Corrugated or standing seam? Corrugated you can make with a fine comb and heavy foil. I think you can find the right comb in a pet store. Standing seam is just board and batton siding, available in wood or plastic.

[jrbarney]

Fergmiester,
Big Boy 4005 is right, you can make your own, but Campbell Scale Models:
http://www.rrscenery.com/scratch.html
makes corrugated roofing as their item 807. Also, Builders In Scale:
http://www.builders-in-scale.com/
makes ribbed seam roofing in aluminum as their item 501 for 8' scale width and it's also available in 4' scale and 12' scale widths.
Bob
NMRA Life 0543

[orsonroy]

QUOTE:
one roof, Blairline General Store is tar paper (I really like Chucks ideas) another is a Branchline house kit, another the Walther's Midstate Marble Cmpany and finally the Rix Store front and upstairs offices.

In short; shingles; tar paper, metal and tar.

OK Fergie, I took the backroad route home this evening, just to look at roofs! Here's what I come up with:

Shingles: these days, most aren't black, but brown (at least here in northern Illinois). , Looking down my block, I see 12 houses with brownish shingles, one with black, and three with grey (and one green painted tin roof). None of the houses on my block have been re-roofed in the five years I've lived here, so they all have some sort of weathering. All have blackish streaking, either from chimneys, aerials, dormer eaves, or for no apparent reason. You can tell where each individual shingle is beacuse they're darker around the edges. Most shingled roofs have many shades of the basic color, much like a brick wall. I say paint a shingled roof a basic color, add a thin wash of black to highlight each shingle, and add streaking as desired (most shingles are "20 year" rated). I model a lot of asphalt shingled houses (they were common after WWI), and generally use Plastruct brick sheet, since Campbell shingle strips look too much like cedar shake shingles, which were basically unheard of in the Midwest after the 1930s.

Tar paper: it's been awhile since I've seen a tar paper roof, but I did a few of them in my high school days. Roll paper is sooty grey and weathers lighter, with the tarred edges staying shiny and black. I generally use masking tape to represent tar paper roofs, and paint them a dark grey. I hand paint the seams with gloss black, and add a wash of black (I wash basically everything with black; it helps)

Metal roofs: Thankfully, I drive past four old elevators on my backroad route home. The one in Burlington, IL, is a model railroader's delight. It's small, has plenty of character, and is completely sheathed in rusty corrugated steel panels. There are also several old feeder barns along the route that have corrugated steel roofs. Basically, they're UNuniformly red oxide in color (rust). The edges are the darkest, and the top edges streal down tot he bottom. lay in some raw sienna, burnt sienna, raw umber, burny umber and black, and start drybrushing and washing. I don't think you'll be able to paint tin to look cartoonish; it weathers in all sorts of strange ways. The Burlington elevator was painted white at some point, and you can still see rusty white paint along several seams and protected areas. Roofs that haven't completely weathered look like old, non-shiny aluminium pots. I'd try gull grey with some gunmetal mixed in. Weather over that. I generally use plastic for all my scratchbuilt buildings, so use Evergreen corrugated roofing and steel roof sheets. I've seen some fantastic thngs done with Campbell corrugated siding, and even heavy-duty tinfoil with the corrugations pressed in with a comb!

Hope this helps! And do what I always say when this sort of project question comes up: find a nice weekend day, grab the camera, some drinks & snacks, and maybe the wife, and go for a drive!

[Big_Boy_4005]

Hey Ray, actually shingles come in almost every color of the rainbow, including blue, red and green. 3M is a large manufacturer of roofing granules, which are used by many of the major shingle manufacturers.

A number of years ago I was in an O scale club, and one of the guys worked for 3M. He had access to the roofing granules, and when we needed ballast, we just told him, and the following week there was another 5 gallon bucket full. By the way, the roof on my house happens to be green.[swg]

Bob, as I was typing my response, I was wondering if Campbell still made those shingles. I've seen them but never tried them.

[jrbarney]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Big_Boy_4005

Bob, as I was typing my response, I was wondering if Campbell still made those shingles. I've seen them but never tried them.

Eliot,
Yes, at least they're still listed at Arizona Rock & Mineral:
http://www.rrscenery.com
as Campbell item 800. However, I think I saw a note recently that Arizona was trying to sell their business.
But, on a cheerier note, Builders In Scale:
http://www.builders-in-scale.com/
has HO scale Victorian shingles in 4 styles, item 504-507, and also make wooden shingles in O and S scales.
And, Northeastern Scale Models, Inc.:
http:www.northeasternscalelumber.com
used to make HO scale wooden shingles.
As for roll roofing tarpaper, someone, I can't remember who, (senior moment), sells a gray tissue paper like material for aged tarpaper.
Bob
NMRA Life 0543

[cwclark]

I use a ply of toilet paper for a tar roof...just glue it over the plastic roof and paint it grimy black..for shingles I found something that you won't believe...Zig Zag cigarette rolling papers cut into scale shingles make great roofing shingles...just be sure you get the ghanga weed off of them or they won't lay flat....Chuck[:D]

[Fergmiester]

Hmmmmm

Grass roof huts now there's a thought. what kinda modelling crowd would that attract?

No. not my cup of tea I'll stick to shingles and tar.

Seriously though thanks for the responses guys as this is what I'm looking for regarding weathering.

[jrbarney]

Didn't intentionally short change Grandt Line Products in my previous posting in this thread. They make gray styrene HO scale scalloped shingle sections (2" actual by 3" actual), item 5216:
http://www.grandtline.com/architectural_parts/ho%20scale/ho_trims.htm
and the copy I have of their hard copy catalog also shows an item 5218 corrugated roof material (1.85" actual by 4.4" actual) that isn't shown in their online catalog.
Bob
NMRA Life 0543

[Anonymous]

If you can use metal roofing (real metal), I remember a trick Wayne Wesolowski used: Put a little olive oil on the metal, then heat it in the gas flame from a stove. At first it'll turn reddish brown, then darker to black as more heat is applied. I think the article had color photos and the effect was very realistic.

BigBoy4005 is right. Roofs come in all colors. The most common are varying shades of black, grey, and brown/tan. I've also seen green as probably the next most common after those 3.

In thinking on the subject of roofs, in modeling the most-overlooked items on houses are TV aerials (50-80s layouts) and chimney flashing. TV aerials are notorious for producing rust streaks on lighter shingled roofs. Flashing can, but to a lesser extent, probably because it's galvanized.

[CBQ_Guy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jay_c
In thinking on the subject of roofs, in modeling the most-overlooked items on houses are TV aerials (50-80s layouts) and chimney flashing.

Check out...

http://goldmm.com/hoscale/gmhtvant.htm

These are HO scale. They also have them in N.