There are five basic types of weathering:

Dust / Rust / Mud / Dirt w/ Oil & Grease / and Chemical (dry or liquid) spillage.

Here's a couple starting tips for your first hand at weathering:

*Many times it is much more fun to start your ideas with a camera / cell phone camera and maybe but not really necessary,  a color printer or laptop monitor for a zoom view after few hours of rail-fanning! If that is not possible the internet has literally thousands of very nice images of locomotives, cars, and structures of all kinds that are weathered.

You may also want to think about having some special artist brushes and a fine mist spray bottle for clean water. They can make those certain effects much easier to do. The mist spray is also for keeping the work you are doing and trying to achieve your desired effects moist and preventing your work from drying out. So really there is no limitation to the working time. When satisfied with appearances..simply let it dry!  Any Walmart, Michaels, Hobby Lobby, or online crafts web searches can easily get you a nice selection.

The Limestone Dye is a powder medium. 100% soluble in clean warm tap water. It has the same  ingredients for adhesion like the other 5 colors of liquid dyes. Transparency is the reason for the change. Anything from a heavy pasty limestone that won't run with gravity all the way to a limestone diluted almost clear film is the reality, desires, now offer we see for modellers. So in effect since this Limestone pigment happens to be the least expensive of the 6 color formulas, and in consideration of the wide ranges of desired popularity of the transparency, we think it best to in this case not offer a diluted formula. We shall see how this goes into the future.

Don't be afraid if you screw up your desired plan of weathering.

Joe's Model Trains Weathering Dyes are formulated with the expressed intent that almost never do any of us modellers get it right the first time. It boggles our mind how other weathering formulas do not have this almost primary thinking behind the powders and liquid weathering products for our model railroad hobby. 

The liquid dyes have an clear water soluble adhesive property that once dry do not easily rub off when the work piece is dried. Therefore no clear sealer coat should be needed. If the surface being weathered is very glossy, waxy, and even maybe contaminated by atmospheric HVAC mixing with the home's kitchen cooking ( oh yes THAT is a thing to recon with for all the bacon lovers- just wipe a finger across a top of most refrigerators) then hard adhesion once dry may be a thing. The best practice to begin any weathering on any model is to give the shell and plastic parts a warm water rinse in some Dawn dish detergent. 1Tsp / gallon is sufficient. Set the parts out to dry or use a hair dryer on low.

Graffiti

While I personally am from the old school of  (shall I use terms) Regular and Natural Weathering, I do regard the graffiti artists with some appreciable talent and there admittedly is some pretty decent stuff out there. The technology for color printers and graffiti decals just keeps getting better and better. When to apply decals?Depends is my answer. The practical point is that decals will not adhere over the top very well if at all on this dried weathering product. The surface is too porous with the fine residue of this weathering product. In addition the application of a decal means that it must be wet. Applying a wet decal to the weathering product will begin to dissolve the product under that decal. So my advice for the graphic artists in our club is to do graffitti after the the warm rinse in detergent and dried. The decal's surface can easily be etched to accept our weathering product with our weathering De-Gloss product. Or if there is any baking soda handy, a spot of that with a drop of distilled water and a damp q-tip will work too. Our De-Gloss has a microscopic sharper cut to the particles and we also use the same material in our Decal and Detail Remover chemical formula.

     Transparency

Something that is almost impossible to achieve with airbrush paint and or powder pigments when weathering models is the real life transparencies that occur with actually a lot of variables and each has a unique look to it.

How many examples of a rusted bolt head is there? Anything from speckled rust on black to completely crusted over orange. You get the idea. Bleeding rust from spikes and plates onto treated oak ties with the wood grain showing through is hard to do with particles of powder and diluted paints. Our weathering dyes do it just perfect. And with a foam roller no less! No clear coat needed. 

Joes Model Trains Custom Weathering Dyes

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  List $11.45  

🛤 Add To Cart     Limestone (Dry Powder) 

🛤 Add To Cart     Rust

🛤 Add To Cart     Dark Buff

     🛤 Add To Cart     Clay Dust

🛤 Add To Cart     Black Grime

🛤 Add To Cart     Dirt & Oil

🛤 Add To Cart     Joes Model Trains Weathering Dyes Kit  $49.95