Need advice on weathering a water tower.

[ort007]

Hello all,
I have a Tyco-kit wooden water tower from the early 80s made by Pola. I would like to weather it but I don't know how to get the right effect. The barrel is molded in orange plastic. Specifically, I'm wondering how to get that dark "streaked" look of old tanks. Would I paint the bands separately with rust and then try a wa***o make it look streaked or the other way around? I'm just guessing so any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Toby

[Anonymous]

Usually, you start with the dark wash (India ink in isopropyl alcohol, or thinned black/grimy black paint) to darken and tone down the whole structure, and then add the 'details' like streaks, rust etc.

[vsmith]

I would paint it first using flat finish paints to get rid of the plasticy sheen and slight transparency it can have, then add the washes, and finally a matte fini***o seal it.

[Jetrock]

Paint the tank your preferred color--depends on the railroad. Paint the bands black with a little rust. An ink wash is a good way to get that streaked look, but that should be done after the coloring of the tank itself and its details are done. Painting colors over a wash will just cover the wash entirely.

One thing that most kits miss is a way to get water up into the tank--if the base is enclosed you don't have to worry about it, but for open-frame bases it is easy enough to use a spare bit of sprue or leftover bit of plastic or metal tubing to make a pipe that goes up into the tank.

Water towers typically have foliage growing under them--they tended to leak a bit, and it's a nice shady spot.

[orsonroy]

I noticed that on older tanks from the late steam-era period, the woodstarted to sun bleach, giving the whole tank a strange weathered surface. This effect showed up in several color photos of NKP water tanks, and I tried to capture the effect on one of the tanks on my layout.

I started by painting the wood supports grimy black, and the roof steam power black. I then painted the entire tank Polly Scale dirt. Once the paint was dry I drybrushed the entire tank with a layer of PS oily black, very lightly near the top, but completely covering the tank on the bottom. I only painted the tank with down strokes, and the tank bands helped break up the oily black realistically. Once the oily black paint was dry, I touched up the bands with black paint, the turnbuckles with rail brown, and added a layer of Dullcoat. I really like the end results, and it captures the look from the photos well. Give it a try!

[randybc2003]

K's book on engine facilities has a discourse on this type of thing. I personaly would paint using enamel base color - such as Yellow, or a mix looking like "wood". Then I would use a thin wash of what ever shade of grime or "faded" paint you wanted. The bands can be marked using felt tip marker.

[ort007]

Thanks for the tips, everyone. I was wondering how I could achieve that unique old water tower look. I think I have a pretty good idea how to approach it now. As always, I appreciate the great support on this forum [:)].