ARE THERE ANY GOOD BOOKS ON WEATHERING

[ripley]

Hello, does anyone know of any good books or magazine articles on the subject of weathering? I have heard that builders of ' Military Modeling have a good knowledge of this subject. And those that build ' Dioramas. I am very interested in this subject, I just purchased a Mopar magazine, the one with Jay Leno on it. and in the magazine is a picture of a 1968 Plymouth RoadRunner, in a field, the car looks like its been sitting outside for 20 years, there are trees growing up out of the engine compartment, when I saw that picture, that was it, I have to build one of these dioramas, they bring back great memory's of me standing out in a farm field, next to a 69' Ford Mustang Mach 1 CJ 428, R code, the car looks like it was used at Los Alomos, for Nuke testing, I hear about the pastels and the tamiya smoke.,I get Micro-Mark, and they cater to the model rail road folks, and they can take a new anything and make it look like the Egyptians built it, even though its a 68' Corvette. Any information, on ' Knowledge of this subject would be greatly appreciated. Thank You,

[Foxer]

There's a lot of info out on the web. The techniques used by railroaders and the armor guys apply here too. For the heavy rusting yo are considering try RUSTALL or Sophisticated Finishes Rust Antiquing Set (available in Michaels). Search it here in this forum too as there are many threads on the subject. I'd try a search for "model junkyards" for that heavy rust effect.

[LUKE'57]

Try googleing "Shep Paine" or books by him. He did a lot of the boxart models for the large scale Monogram planes and is an artist when it come to weathering and a pretty neat guy to boot.

[Zoom Zoom]

Pat Covert covered it pretty well in one of his books and some articles & a video; and Fine Scale Modeler has had lots of articles on weathering through the years. Sorry I can't be more specific for a specific source that would be of the most help; in fact hopefully someone else will chime in so I can get my research more in order.

In general weathering is more fun, more "loose" than the precise/clean detailing we do on most models, so there's lots of room for a learning curve and there's no one right or wrong way to do it. It can be addictive! Adding dirt & rust is pretty fun.

[von Zipper]

Hey Ripley-Here's one of my favorite books for ideas, it was done by a husband and wife team as seen on the cover

This could be done very easy with the Revell '37 Ford pick/up kit

Or the Galaxie 46-48 Chevy kit

There are alot of good detail pictures

My favorite is this picture of a mother birds nest in the heater box of an old Mercury

This is just a small sample of what's in this book,

Cecil

[LoneWolf15]

Ripley,

I don't have the specific titles of the books , all are put out by Kalmbach Publishing. The authors are Dave Frary , John Olson , and Malcolm Furlow . All are model railroading books and cover a multitude of subjects concerning weathering techniques for Ho scale trains . These techniques can easily be applied to car modeling.

Donn Yost

Lone Wolf Custom Painting

[Jairus]

Nice collection of links "South". I have bookmarked about half of them and will come back for more inspiration later.

However, so we can congratulate you properly, could you please put your full name in the signature block. That way we know who to buy a beer at the next NNL! (Not to mention it is a forum rule, thanks)

[Jairus]

That makes no sense at all. Either follow the rules of the forum or don't post! Self control and all that....

[Custom Hearse]

Ken Hamilton (awesome builder) has a book out called "How to build creative dioramas for your scale auto models". It's a great guide for showing you how to build AND how to weather them. It includes 3 different sections on weathering metal, wood, and plaster.

It's a little hard to find though... You can contact Ken at the B&B boards, and see if he has any copies left. I tried for a long time to get him to publish it again... Maybe if enough people ask him, he'll do it.

http://s13.zetaboards.com/B_n_B_Auto_Builders/index/

You can find him in the diorama section (of course ).

Edited November 18, 2009 by Custom Hearse

[RyanSilva]

Ken Doesn't have any copies to sell, the last time we talked about his book on the forum. copies are usually for sale at 100 bucks and higher, on amazon...crazy!

You wont need any book, read the tips and tricks I and many other modeler's have contributed to , over at the BNB auto builder forum in the diorama section.

[cruz]

I think the weather channel has a real good one!!!!

[Custom Hearse]

I think the weather channel has a real good one!!!!

Hmmm... Step away from the paints Marcos, you've been around them a little too long...

[Custom Hearse]

Ken Doesn't have any copies to sell, the last time we talked about his book on the forum. copies are usually for sale at 100 bucks and higher, on amazon...crazy!

$100.00!?! Man, I'm glad I bought my copy when it came out!

[cruz]

Hmmm... Step away from the paints Marcos, you've been around them a little too long...

I'm sorry guys, don't know what came over me.....

[Custom Hearse]

I'm sorry guys, don't know what came over me.....

[Art Anderson]

While I haven't weathered a model car since I did the boxart for the Lesney-AMT reissue of the 1907 Thomas Flyer, I find myself looking at, fixing in my memory, lots of older, weathered cars. That was pretty much how it got done, at least for me, back in the days when color prints cost a small arm and a leg to develop and print. Today, with digital cameras, the research gets pretty easy, and dirt cheap too (once you get past the price of the camera!), and oh, did I mention instantaneous results?

Seriously, the best out there at weathering do take the time to see where rust streaks run and flow down an old painted surface, see how mud splatters up the sides of a car or pickup truck body, and how dust collects on the sides and rear surfaces of a body shell or pickup box. I learned a lot of this weathering HO railroad cars years ago, when after several weathering jobs on boxcars, I was astonished to finally discover the rather narrow bands of roadbed dirt that got sprayed up the ends of RR cars from the wheels of the car in front of them during a rainstorm. That began changing how I looked at the process.

Whlle I don't weather model cars anymore (perhaps I should think of starting to?) some things come to mind: If it's a worn out 30's or 40's car, particularly a Ford, look closely at the windshield and side glass--you should notice a "milkiness" around the edges of the safety glass, where the clear plastic sticky laminate between the two sheets of plate glass has dried out, turned cloudy. Those old, darker paints used back then weathered quickly, due to UV exposure--as a kid, I almost never saw a shiny dark blue, green or black car more than say, 5yrs old, that didn't have a "shimmer" of a transparent red and blue haze on top of the paint, not at all unlike the discoloration one sees on a chrome exhaust header on a driven street rod or motorcycle exhaust. Not sure just how to replicate that, but it would be interesting to say the least!

Old car chrome spears, particularly on Fords from the 30's onward, but other lower to midpriced cars as well, were made from stainless steel (which Ford called "rustless steel" for years, with good reason) doesn't rust, it stays fairly bright, with but a slightly dull burnished haze on it. About the only chrome plated trim on 50's or 60's cars were the door handles, emblems and scripts and of course bumpers, all else was either stainless steel, or anodized aluminum (which itself turns a whitish, rather dull silver color with time). Chrome bumpers tend to rust, first in specks, finally in patches where the rust has pushed and peeled away the chrome plating, finally overall rust, with only hints of very dull silver chrome. Headlights, particularly sealed beams, stay bright, as their silver plated reflectors are sealed inside the glass, so they stand out rather starkly even on the rustiest of cars.

Rustout almost always tended to follow a pattern--rust started where there were "moisture traps" in the body structure. From the introduction of full width "envelope" body shells in 1948-49, the most logical moisture trap area was the rocker panels, which rotted from the inside out. Next came the areas over the rear wheel arches, as those had a "lip" to the inside, and even rolled edges on that lip, which trapped road dirt that held water for a long time after any rainfall. Of course, in snow country, the increasing use of salt to melt the snow and ice on the pavement accelerated that process immensely, but you will see rustout on a lot of old cars in even the desert southwest, due to the alkaline content of the soils, and the road dust that accumulates, gets wet when it does rain. Rust also began where mounting holes existed for attaching chrome trim, body side spears, and around windows and the base of the roof on the more upscale models. With the coming of the "frenched look" of "eyebrows" over the tops of headlights, particularly on GM and Chrysler products of the mid-50's, the lack of an inner fender panel wrapping pretty much all the way around the front wheels allowed road dirt and mud to collect in those voids above the headlights, with resulting rot, also from the inside out. Even wheels with full wheel covers had their share of rust, given the standard mounting of full wheel covers by means of spring clips or tabs that scraped the paint off the inner edge of the rims, so rust, along with dirt mixed with storm water made for dirty streaks on tires.

Tires weather as well, as I am sure most know. Pre-WWII tires were natural latex rubber, which wasn't completely black even when new, and as those tires aged, they turned a medium grey color on all surfaces exposed to sunlight, but the tread surfaces, if the car was being driven, remained almost dark black due to wear (but the tread grooves collected whatever road grime was present, so they show up lighter in whatever color (greyish grime in the city, tan or even reddish dirt if the car got a lot of use on gravel or dirt roads). Even postwar synthetic rubber tires got a greyish look to their sidewalls, but more a dark charcoal color. Old whitewalls in service, even if cleaned, would start to turn a dirty yellow in a week or so, as the colors of the black rubber underneath the white rubber leached through, eventually turning a dark brown if not cleaned. In the city, sidewall scuffing was, and still is, common. On blackwall tires, of course scuffing takes off any raised lettering from the tread siping up to the fattest part of the sidewall, on the outer sides of the tires. On whitewalls, curb scuffing made for blackish smudges where dirt ground into the white rubber, eventually, the scuff bead around the edge of the whitewall would disappear, and splotches of white showed through outside of the carefully buffed area that the factory gave those tires in manufacture.

Underneath, when new, those older cars had black chassis almost universally, but leaf springs, and often coil springs as well, were not painted prior to their assembly, so those parts got surface rust very quickly. The undersides of body shells seldom got any more attention than primer, with a bit of lower body color overspray along the bottoms of rocker panels, but that disappeared very quickly--either under factory or dealer-installed tar based undercoating, or in dry country, dust and dirt. Old undercoating tended to dry out, flake away, leaving patches of bare metal that rusted quickly in service.

Anyone who has ever been underneath an older car that's seen a lot of road time should know that dirt and seeping oil or grease (hey, if those older cars didn't leak lubricants, it was because they were out of lubricants!) mixed together in a caked on layer of grime, that in time would flake away, and the process would begin all over again. The area around oilpan drain plugs, transmission filler and drain plugs (same with rear axle differential housings) tended to be wet with oil, and rather black in color. Engines would pick up what ever dust or dirt came in through the radiator, dulling, then darkening whatever color they had been painted. The inevitable seepage of coolant around water pumps, and along the seam between cylinder block and heads tended to make the engine paint peel there as well. Where fuel seeped from carburetors down onto the intake manifold, the painted part got discolored, and even the paint might peel away, as gasoline dissolved it over time. The various additives in gasoline tended to turn diecast carburetors a brownish color as well. Firewalls and the inner fender panels ajacent to the engine took on a grime of their own, from both road dirt blowing in from the front, and perhaps some oil or coolant that escaped, and got blown or thrown against those surfaces. Copper radiators with brass tanks used to be painted with an asphaltic black paint, which when new was a semi-gloss black, but which collected dust and dirt, which turned them a dull dark charcoal grey color. Bug splatters on the forward surface of radiator cores is also a common thing, something which modelers seldom ever replicate.

Laminated safety plate glass doesn't crumble and fall out like modern tempered glass, rather the broken glass was held pretty much in place by the gummy, sticky layer of plastic laminate between the two sheets of glass, so cracks, even the results of an impact are there, with the glass pretty much held in its original contour or shape.

Phew! Long winded post, I know, but based on years of observation.

Art

[Zoom Zoom]

Not a book, but a great article by Virgil "D a m n Cranky" Suarez in MCM #135/October 2008. A step-by-step how-to to get a weathered/rusty "beater" look. I'm looking forward to trying his technique, the results are fantastic.

Edited November 22, 2009 by Zoom Zoom