I needed a way to weather wood to match my weathered styrene. I have been a user of styrene since the Alan Armitage articles in the late 1950's. I find that styrene is more versatile than real wood in being model wood. I developed this idea with styrene in the 1970's. I was trying to build early Pennsylvania logging structures. Unfortunately I have no examples of my earlier work.
I am trying to make model wood look like these examples.
I am modeling O scale and have started to use wood more. It is more readily available in the larger sizes I need than styrene. I cut it on a Dremel saw and full-sized table saw. My initial ventures into wood involved staining the wood with an India Ink/alcohol solution. It did not look like weathered and bleached wood. I tried a wash of acrylic and restaining the wood with the I/A solution. It just looked grey. It did not have the underlying white of weathered wood.
I wanted a method that allowed all the materials to have the same appearance. Mixing different normally stained woods causes a mixed appearance. My method uses the grain and texture but controls the color of the wood. The white paint is basically being stained.
I originally did not think that painting the wood with a thinned white acrylic paint would work. I was worried that the paint would fill the wood and it would lose it's texture. This is how painting wood with acrylic white thinned with water and stained with the India Ink/Alcohol. These are wood coffe stirrers, the left ones are just stained with the I/A solution.
This is rough cut pine done the same way.
This is acrylic Kilz primer on wood coffee stirrers. It was stained with undiluted Black Rit Liquid Dye.
This is balsa and an HO man. He is standing in my homemade faux fur grass. I was suprised that the undistressed balsa shows no grain.
Paint the wood with a thinned mixture of white acrylic. It should be about the consistancy of heavy cream. The paint should make the wood white but not fill in the grain. It works with tube and craft paints. Let the paint thoroughly dry. If it is not dry the paint will leach into the stain and it will be essentially grey paint.
Mix waterproof India Ink with Isopropyl Rubbing alcohol until it produces this stain on a paper towel. Apply the stain until the wood is the right color
I was building this bridge for my layout and was using wood originally stained with an I/A wash. I wanted to update it to my new method.
I applied a coat of Kilz Acrylic primer to the finished bridge. The old finish was completely covered.
I stained the bridge with a wash of Black Rit Liquid Dye straight from the bottle. Put a small amount of the dye on the surface and add water to make a wash. Spread the dye around to make a mottled effect. Add more water to lighten and more dye to darken. The finish will dry lighter. The Kilz primer works better with this than an India Ink/alcohol stain. (Click images to enlarge)
My other stage coach bridge done the same way.
(Click Images to Enlarge)
There is also Zap Latex primer. It is cheaper and has a smoother, more plastic finish. It stains best with an India Ink/Alcohol mixture.
This is pine from a 1x4. I cut my boards with a table saw. Boards 1,2 and 5 have the rough saw surface. Boards 3 and 4 have the original planed surface.
Kilz2 Latex has a rougher, flatter finish and takes the Rit Liquid dye better.
Zap has a smoother finish and takes the India Ink/Alcohol Finish better. The Rit Liquid dyes are excellent stains directly from the bottle.
Success on the bridges resulted in this experiment. I took some boards and assembled them. I should have roughed the planed surfaces on the boards that were smooth. I did that with some fine sandpaper after assembly. (Click Image to Enlarge)
I painted the boards with Zap Primer. This is one coat. Doing it again I would put a second coat. (Click Image to Enlarge)
The assembly was stained with the India Ink/Alcohol stain. The results were very good. Pre-staining could be eliminated. The wood would only have to be mildly distressed to create variation in the wood. (Click Image to Enlarge)
These are just experiments or what I am doing. I am sure there are other methods. Using latex primer speeds the process of building. The model can be completely built and the primer applied. It covers the glue spots and they just stain out.
In the smaller scales I find that styrene represents wood better than wood. The "grain" is more controllable and it has no color. More effects can be applied because of the blank palette of styrene.
Above is styrene as weathered wood. At left is a HO Atlas Trackside Shanty. The styrene has been weathered to represent aging wood.
Styrene makes excellent rough weathered wood.
Styrene Combined with Wood
Our styrene and wood combo, the outside panels are sheet styrene and the timbers are wood. Painted with flat Kilz2 primer and stained with Dye-na-flow fabric paint.
Staining white primer will also work on plaster castings. A modified HO Woodland Scenics timber portal.
Flatcar Decks on Plastic Cars
A Bachmann On30 plastic flatcar painted with flat white acrylic craft paint and stained with black Dye-na-flow fabric paint.
(Click Image to Enlarge)
Scribed basswood primed white and mottled with Black Rit Dye. Note the grain problem in scribed wood sheeting.
(Click Image To Enlarge)
Darryl Huffman's use of our Technique
Darryl Huffman displayed a model using the Kilz and rit dye on the Yahoo weathering forum:
À : weathering@yahoogroups.com
Objet : [weathering] New picture in FILES : Re: Harold's Rit Dye staining
method--
I have been playing with Harold's Rit Dye method of getting the look of old
silver grey wood. My cabin using this method is about half way completed so
I decided to upload a picture of it into the FILES section.
Darryl Huffman
12020 Old Seward Highway
Anchorage, Alaska 99515
Learning about DCC? New DVD now available:
http://darrylhuffman.50megs.com/custom2_1.html
Below is his cabin (Click Images to Enlarge)
