So if you’re into weathering your structures, rail cars, engines, hand-cast rocks, or really anything on your model railroad layout, you’ll need to start somewhere with some basic weathering supplies.
A quick search online will give you some really nice weathering washes and weathering powders or “pigments”. A lot of these are great products and work very well when used correctly, but many of them can become costly, especially when you’re starting out. Why start out with expensive supplies when you haven’t even mastered the art of weathering yet?
Here’s what I did to get a quick set of weathering pigments for my model railroad buildings…
Step 1
First you’re going to have to pick up a set of chalk pastels from the craft store. I think the local big box store calls them Soft Pastels, but essentially they’re chalk pastels. These are the ones I picked up, and if you’re smart, you’ll find a 50% off one item coupon and get them for about $7.
Okay, so you have you chalk, I’m sorry, soft pastels.
The other thing I picked up (I think at the dollar store, but craft stores are bound to have them too) was a package of cheap-o little plastic containers to store the chalk dust in. These are actually nice to have extra of in general in case you want to store little parts in or whatever suits your fancy.
Step 2
Now you need to grind or scrape them into dust. This part is easy, but if you’re clumsy with an Xacto knife you might want to take extra precautions and wear the whole safety kit (glasses, work gloves, mask, hard hat and haz-mat suit). But really, it’s simple. I just used my Xacto blade and shaved the chalks into piles on a piece of scrap paper.
Once I had enough to fill up the container, or until I ran out of patience shaving down the pastel stick, I used the paper and funneled the pile of dust into the container.
Wa-Lah! Now you have a budget friendly set of weathering pigments to work with on your model railroad!
Other Thoughts
I have heard of some people using a little hand held coffee grinder or a small food processor to grind up the chalk, but I didn’t want to upset the wife and fill her food processor with chalk dust.
I also hear some people suggesting that you seal your weathering dust on buildings with different sorts of sealants or DIY sealers, but we’ve never ran into an issue with the weathering coming off our buildings, so I choose not to use these. To each their own.
I hope this helps you get started with some basic weathering supplies! Happy modeling!
