Weathering Sankei Buildings

[tossedman]

Has anyone attempted weathering their Sankei paper buildings? Or, stumbled across any videos or sites that show how it's been done? I've just spent a bunch of time weathering a scratch built engine shed and would hate to plunk some brand new looking Sankei buildings beside it. Wood and plastic I can figure out but I've never attempted weathering card stock.

 

Cheers eh,

 

Todd

[cteno4]

Todd,

 

I haven’t weathered any yet but I have hit them with dulcoat before assembling to help make sure they don’t warp. I think a layer of dulcoat will help the weather just like other painted buildings. I would not do washes on them. Maybe light alcohol washes might work if dullcoated first as that should seal the laserboard up. issue with built structure is the windows won’t like a dull coat.
 

Best to experiment with the extra surrounding stock material to see how it reacts to your usual methods. I did experiment with getting sankei laserboard wet way back when they first came out. It resisted moisture much much better than the usual cardstocks used in other lasercut stuff, but it wasn’t plastic! It does seem to have a fair bit of resin in it. Anyhow I just decided then to dull coat pieces before assembly so it would be well sealed from future humidity changes and such. I think mark did fine painting some of his HO sankei with acrylics.

 

jeff

[tossedman]

Thanks Jeff! Good idea on the dull coat. I'll give it a whirl.

 

Todd

[maihama eki]

Be careful with the flat coats. I have found that Tamiya TS-80 flat clear lacquer reacts with Sankei material and leaves a sort of white frost on the surface. Other dull/flat coats may work. Try it on a scrap piece first.

 

As mentioned, liquid washes can warp the card stock unless they are sealed with another paint coat. 

 

Dry brushing acrylic or enamel works.

 

Pastels or chalks work well.

 

Tamiya weathering powder works.

 

 

[tossedman]

Good advice, thanks. I'll give it try on of some scraps and see if there's an adverse reactions. Since I know diddly squat about weathering this will be another adventure.

 

Cheers,

 

Todd

[ianlaw]

One thing to note is that unlike plastic there's no second chance. You cannot get the pastel/chalk/weathering powder off the card once it's on. With card I'd always go for pre-weathered wraps but obviously that's only suitable for scratch building. I've seen people use an airbrush on the separate components before construction.

[valkyriepm]

Aqurel pencils are also very cool to weather this kits. You can use them dry or wet for different effects. Chalk pencils also good for streaking effects.

[tossedman]

On 4/10/2023 at 9:28 AM, ianlaw said:

One thing to note is that unlike plastic there's no second chance. You cannot get the pastel/chalk/weathering powder off the card once it's on. With card I'd always go for pre-weathered wraps but obviously that's only suitable for scratch building. I've seen people use an airbrush on the separate components before construction.

Good advice Ian. What are pre-weathered wraps? Never heard of them.

7 hours ago, valkyriepm said:

Aqurel pencils are also very cool to weather this kits. You can use them dry or wet for different effects. Chalk pencils also good for streaking effects.

More good advice. I shall seek out some of these Aqurel pencils as well and see how that goes.

 

Cheers,

 

Todd

[ianlaw]

I mean a photorealistic texture you can print on paper and wrap round ( glue on) parts or all the structure you're building. 

[cteno4]

It’s amazing the weathering you can do with a bitmap program as well. Let’s you try something and lift it right off if you don’t like it.

 

jeff