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How to weather your boats (Pier 51)

how it all started...

Mark Smith (aka Gunny) asked me to do a short article on the techniques I used in weathering my boats for my harbour dio I’m working on. There are many articles on weathering techniques written by more experienced modellers that I. However, I hope you will find these ideas helpful and amusing.

Note from the Editor:
This feature is long overdue publishing, mainly my fault! I owe Alan McNeilly a big apologise. I hope that the feature I edited and published, is in accordance with and does justice too the helping and sharing spirit shown by Alan, helping other modelers around the world.
Rui Matos (aka skipper).

weathering a wooden deck

I wanted to create a wooden deck area that look worn and used.

I tend where possible to work from light towards dark. The deck was painted in Vallejo Yellow Ochre as a base coat and then washed several times with very watery Tamiya Dark Brown XF 64, just to give it the hint of brown wood.
Then it was given another one or two washes with a mix of Light Grey XF 66 and Matt Black XF 1.

It was still a bit lighter than I wanted so, I mixed some more grey/black and added a little metallic grey XF 56. However, that was a little too black so I polished the deck with a tissue before the last wash had dried, and that's left a really nice finish, with some boards very black and others worn looking. The metallic grey has given the wood an accumulated grime effect and darkened the wood where I though it would collect most dirt and grime.
Example – ‘The Wee Boat’
I used a similar technique on the ‘Wee Boat’ but without the grey/black/metallic mix.

Example – Pontoons and Barrels
Again a similar technique, this time varying the colour to achieve what I wanted.