Weathering Kato Unitrack Ideas or Suggestions

[davidgray1974]

I checked around and didn't quite see what I was looking for on previous posts, so I was curious if anyone had any suggestion or ideas they would like to share regarding weathering Kato unitrack.  Alot of the posts I was finding were more along the lines of weathering the track by itself.  Ideas for other types of track that are already glued and ballasted would work as well.   Sharing photos as well as steps would be great!  What prompted my reasoning for this post was my first attempt at weathering track yesterday, and I kindof have mixed feelings about it. 

Here are some pictures of a piece of unitrack that I airbrushed yesterday for practice.  I started with Polyscale Roof Brown, then toned it down with Floquil SP Lark Light Grey and then sprayed Polyscale Grimy Black down the middle.





David

[Dave V]

I think the colors are great!  My only concern, which may be a function of the photograph itself, is that I can no longer see the ballast "texture" on the painted part.

[davidgray1974]

I agree with you 100%.  That is basically why I was having mixed feelings about my results.  I was using a 50/50 ratio of paint to distilled water and it still came out as opaque as it did.  Adding any more water to the mix made it way too watery.

[Smike]

Hi David,
I did some tests a while back on untrack. What I found for me to work the best was to darken the track with a wash, paint the rails, then ballast as much as I could over the grey plastic, then the final touch was to use chalks to grime up the road bed a bit. Chalks really give it a nice texture, and if you do it in light passes you can get some nice variation to the color.

I used dark colors to blend in the ties so they don't look all European spaced far apart. Also this dark oily look seems typical in coal mining country back in the day.

First without any chalk weathering:


Same with chalk weathering applied:

[MichaelWinicki]

I would suggest the Floquil Paint markers... Especially the "Weathered Black" found in the set of 3 labeled for buildings.  You'll be able to paint the rail pretty quickly without getting it on the ballast.

The darker you make the rail, the smaller it will appear.

Using chalks on the ballast is a very good idea.