The Spray Painting Works!

Sort of!  Okay, to be perfectly honest, I love it.  It is cheap, simple, quick and it works.  However, some people may not like it.  To them I say: do what is best for you!  Model railroading is a large open community and if we didn't do what we wanted, it wouldn't be fun.  Me, I am going to use spray paint.  Since I started looking into this weathering system back with the original use on the Geep I have made some advances in technique and application.  Let's review:

The spray paint cannot be thought of in an airbrush way.  You cannot thin it down, dial back the pressure or ramp it up, and you cannot affect the spray area to smaller or larger area.  It is constant, in all manners. 

"But if it is so hard to change it, why use it?"  Simple.  It's cheap.  And because I have been able to mostly counteract the negative things above. 

Now for how I advise you use it.  First is selecting the paint.  Contrary to intuition you do not want to go for the name brands or the "quality" ones.  These are good for other applications but not this.  They put out a lot of paint for good smooth coverage.  Not the ideal situation for weathering.  Pick up the store brands or generics.  These give the smallest amount of paint required and also give more bang for the buck.  Be very sure to get flat paints. 

The gloss will shine once they are applied and look off.  Always be sure to go flat unless you need shiny.  Once you have the paints, make one of these:

This is the template I made for basic shapes.  Mine is made from a box I got a sweater in.  It is thin, stiff, and was close enough I didn't have to get up.  :)  The bottom is for getting that dust or dirt color along the bottom of cars, and the top is for the locomotive as it has the indentation for the wave.  The wave is where the aerodynamics of the train causes a rise that drags dirt up with it.  Usually this is located around the cab, but prototype photos show the best places.  There are lines and triangles for various streakings and point weathering.  The 4 on the right are for showing where the dirt is kicked up onto car ends from the other cars wheels.  They are in gauge with the rails and wheels.  If you do not want a noticable line showing you used a mask, hold the template about an inch or two from the model so that it can fade around it.  For crisp lines that show specific edges, hold it as close as possible.  You can add or remove things as needed.  If the pattern openings are too close together, then use painters tape to cover over unwanted openings (as seen above).

Now for colors.  Choose what you like best.  I have a white for fading the overall car, a tan for dust and other dirt effects, and a black for grime and wear.  You can have more or others, it is really up to you!

Last but not least, technique.  Since you cannot control the amount of pain being sprayed, you must control the movement.  Short quick passes are best.  If you do not want a lot of weathering then do not spray at the model but at the ground in front of it.  Some of the spray will carry onto the model without being overkill.  Remember, as with airbrushing it is easier to make it heavier than to make it lighter, so go easy and check your work constantly.  I do every few passes just to be sure. 

A downside is that the spray is not as fine as an airbrush so if you look reeeeeeeally closely you can see the dots of paint.  This can be negated by using pastels or other methods of weathering to even out.  Ultimately it works for me, and I have enjoyed it immensly.  Here are two of the cars I have used this on:

So there you have it.  A neat and simple way to weather your cars.  As always, feel free to leave questions and comments.  Have fun and good luck y'all!