To weather, or not to weather.....

Lets talk about the psychology of weathering!

You may be suffering from "Collector Syndrome".

Kits are kits and they are purchased with the intent of building a model. Purchase ready to run off the shelf rolling stock and the mindset changes as it all comes neatly packaged in a nice box and you place the item on the track and it goes. You have paid £10 for a wagon and weathering and any fiddling will destroy its value. When you think about it how often do you see weathered rolling stock on exhibition layouts? Not a lot. Many model railway club members are also closet collectors!

On the other hand did not GWR for example run a ***** and span railway?

They must be the one company where it might actually not be right to apply any weathering to any of their model rolling stock. You may then be suffering from "Modellers Guilt Complex Syndrome" in that you will be presenting your favourite company in a bad light. If you have the same emotional attatchment to BR that many have for GWR then this could indeed be the issue.

On balance it is normally the first rather than the second that puts people of weathering or detailing their models.

I'm all for it as for every item of rolling stock that it messed with by others the value of mint collectables rises!

Yes I am a "Collector Syndrome" sufferer!

The solution is to buy 2 of each item. One to keep in a collectable condition and one to deliberately mofify.

Or to only buy locomotives and items of rolling stock that are weathered by the manufacturers. They will only do it if it is prototypical as any other course will lead to rivet counter complaints that "that loco" or "that coach" was never never seen in "that" condition!

At least with the powdered stuff it will wash off.

All sufferers of the two aforementioned syndromes could seek help from their local practitioner!

Or maybe start a local "Weathering Phobia" group for modellers who have a fear of weathering!

As with all "Watcher" or "Anonymous" or "Phobia" groups the first thing you have to do is to admit that you have a problem which I have done!

Is anybody else willing to be "outed" and own up to suffering the syndromes as described above?

There is absolutely nothing wrong with owning up to a fear of weathering!

And what ideas do folk have to help modellers break these phobias about weathering?

It is a fact that poorly weathered ready to run rolling stock has little collectable value.

A well made well painted and weathered kit on the other hand is highly desirable among those who cannot be bothered to make and paint the kit themselves!

The solution seems to be to purchase Ratio kits and other OO wagon kits and make the wagons yourself!

Happy modelling
Gary

Gary, I think you hit the nail on the head! Rarely have I been so accurately and frighteningly psycho-analysed. (and funny to boot!)

I have a leaning towards BR Western Region with nice rakes of chocolate and cream coaches, but I fall firmly into the 'It's not right, but I like it' school of thought as discussed elsewhere, so I'm not convinced it's Modellers Guilt Syndrome.

So here goes, my name is Chris and I'm a weatheraphobic.

I'm working in N, so better not get OO wagons, but it's a darned good idea, 'cause if I've built it myself I'll have no qualms at all about weathering it.

Mind you, I'm thinking about the box of unbuilt armour kits in the loft and wondering if I've been suffering from this 'Collector Syndrome' longer than I realised. Just so long as I don't end up with a box of unbuilt wagon kits!!

Grief! This is harder than I thought, maybe just have to take John's advice above and not risk aggravating the collecting thing!

I suppose I too have a fear of weathering, but from the other side.

As I have to modify all my rolling stock to unify the couplings anyway, the question oc collectability goes straight out of the window. My fear is of overdoing the wearhering. (Toomuchmuckaphobia?)

So I manage to grubby up all wagon and coach underframes in a mixture og greys and browns, all open wagons get dirty interiors (where not loaded) and a fair layer of filth on the outside. The locomotive fleet will go from ex works to extremely dirty.

I fear there is no cure.

Regards

John

QUOTE (ChrisA @ 9 Feb 2007, 19:01) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I've got a bit of a dilemma. I've been given free reign to build a layout in my garden shed (actually a cnverted single garage), but it needs some weather proofing, insulation and power laying on and frankly this isn't the weather for jobs like that.

In the mean time I've been working on my track plan, collecting buildings and aquiring rolling stock. Now I'm looking at my pristine BR MK1s and 16t mineral wagons and wondering whether to weather them.

In my time I've painted 90mm military miniatures, I've dabbled in AFV modelling and even done some war gaming, I'd never dream of superdetailing a Sherman Firefly without applying a a good layer of mud, dust and general grot to tone down the decals and give it a well used 'in the field' look. But for some reason I can't seem to bring myself to do it to my rolling stock. I've got a Dapol Siphon G which is screaming to have the detail brought out with some dry brushing, but I can't do it. It's not that I don't think I can do a good job, it just doesn't feel right somehow.

Am I alone in this, or do other people feel inhibited in this way?

The key to weathering is to get as many colour pictures as you can. Being a fellow WR modeller, I can advise that Ian Allan does a range of books in the GBP 14.99 price range full of colour pictures of the WR which are ideal for research for weathering.
Armed with these tools and some Carrs powders, simply 'paint what you see'. Provided the result looks like the picture, you can't go far wrong. This was one of my early 'jobs':



I call this the 'full works' weathering.

PS: How does one embed a picture in a message. I tried the <img src= > html but it doesn't seem to work.

Graham Plowman

Book addiction surely demands a whole forum for sufferers so afflicted!

My local library is 2 minutes walk and has a small collection of about 150 railway books. For some reason I seem to be more of a magazine addict than a book addict and am always being suckered in to bringing home piles of old railway mags. People know I am a sucker for anything free and I always seem to have first refusal on any old mags that are being thrown out!

Then wifey gets upset when I refuse to clear them out myself to make way for the new batch!

In terms of weathering there are one or two very good books available dedicated to this art. I am not entirely convinced that Ian Allen will have these in stock as they are more into general transport.

"The Art of Weathering" by Martyn Welch surely has to be the de facto book to get?

I've read it. Its pretty good.

And another tip for those who have this fear of weathering brand new models.

Why not buy secondhand and browse through the bargain basement bin at your local stockist?

Although of course new rolling stock has all that splendid fine detail that you want weathering to enhance that is missing from secondhand stuff...

Happy modelling
Gary