One of my recent kits was the Erie Power Shovel from Rio Grande Models Ltd.

I weathered it by dry-brushing with a couple of colors, starting with brown and ending with rust.  I then used my India ink and alcohol wash to color the wood and darken the rest of the model.

After watching the almost completed model stare at me for quite a while I finally dedided to complete the model.  For this model I used commercial weathering poweders in various shades from red to orange, yellow and black.  These are slightly different than using chalk as the harder you scrub them the more vividly they apear on the model.  The major reason for them being so much stronger than chalk is that they are made from ground artists pigment.

I went heavy on the weathering because I figured that equipment like this  would see a lot of use.

I added on the lettering using dry transfer decals.  After adding the small lettering I decided to redo it in another location.  I find that is one of the nice things about dry transfer is that they are relatively easy to remove if you decide against them.  I did this by using the tip of a hobby knife to scratch them off.

I then added all of the final details, using grab-irons from a detail upgrade kit available for this model.  I decided that buying the upgrade kit would produce better results than trying to make them myself.  For the next kit I will think twice about them, because while they certainly were convenient it would be easy to make them.  Included in this detail kit was an etched metal kit for the end ladders.  This would have been a very good looking upgrade, however I found that my soldering skills were not up to the task – they will make good additions to a scrap pile some where on the layout.

After final touch-up, I sprayed the model with dull-cote.  I didn’t bother masking the windows as I did not put an interior in it.  I then used chalk to weather the caboose.

I have to thank my wife for the beautiful picture of the completed project taken on my “work in progress” layout.

Before completing the chalk weathering on the model I painted the metal parts with silver paint.  Over this I dry-brushed a rust color, adding heavy color where it would be likely for rust to form.  Once this had dried I used the chalk to blend in the areas and add even more rust color to the metal.

One of the other final steps was to fill in the small gap on the upper window by using white glue.  This had the effect of filling in the gap, but was able to be hidden by the weathering so that it was not noticeable.  Once all of this had dried I coated the entire model with Dullcote to protect all of the weathering.  On most models I would have done this before installing the windows as it take away the clarity, however in this case I wanted the windows to be slightly opaque so that you  were not able to see inside the building.

Once this building was complete I donated it to the San Leandro Historic Railway society to be used as a generic industrial building on our layout.  This building served as my “try piece” and landed me the job of working with another member to create the buildings for the Selby area of the layout (Selby, CA during the 1950′s contained a lead smelter and not far from there is the C&H sugar plant).  I will provide pictures of this current building and any future buildings in that area as they are built.

After wiping off the excess paint to color the grout in between the bricks I glued the acetate on the window frames and doors.  The reccomendation from most sources is to use some form of white glue to hold it in place, but as I intended to weather the building so that the glass would not really be clear anyways, I used Zap-a-Gap.  This allowed me to install the “glass” much faster than using white glue would have done.  Here is a picture of the building after all the windows and doors had been installed:

The next step was to airbrush a layer of dirt on the building.  Unfortunatly for me I did not thin out the paint far enough so it ended up leaving some rather large splatters.  This ended up working out in the long run as I then used chalk to blend everything together.  Here is a picture showing the roof with one side showing the airbrush and the other showing the chalk blending it in:

I also used chalk to blend on the rest of the building, using a piece of sandpaper to grind the chalk into a fine powder.  I usually use a couple of different colors and use the application brush to blend them.  Here is a picture showing work on the walls of the building:

As you can see in the picture, I also used the chalk on the windows which had the effect of making them very hard to see through (just like most industrial buildings that I see in Oakland, CA).