In Korea for a year, so got time to burn! Brought a ton of my Reading cars to start weathering. First is the flat cars and gons...these I'm not so comfortable with because of the wood decks. I did this first and asked for a critique on facebook:




And was told to try to wether the planks individually instead of just whisking my powder around with my microbrush. So i redid the flat car, washed off the powders, repainted it and then applied the powders with the microbrush in a more applied technique to the individual planks (or as best I could, n scale planks are very small!)

Here is what I came up with.



Now this one got better reviews than the first. But I don't know, i think it looks too "striped." I also think the two gons look decent in their own rights. Now generally I will weather the flats and gons with a gray base, but before realizing that decks weather gray, I actually painted the decks with a "new wood" color, which I might keep a few as is, and label them as recently shopped.

Anyways, I need as much critique as possible, so I know where to put my effort into improving my techniques. I'm still very new to this!!!
Thanks!

Hey Turbo,
IMHO I think your units look good and whatever techniques your using to obtain the effects you want keep doing so.There are so many articles out there telling modelers the best way to weather is this or that.Master the technique you like best and try other weathering techniques as you progress.Always start out light and have pictures availble for reference.Remember the final judge is you,if you like the results then you met your goal.

Turbo - be safe overseas!
I also agree with Chris - do what you like best. But, also, since you asked, I can also agree with you that the flat looks a bit "striped" I like it the way it was. The gons look great too!

painting the wood decks wood color first and then weathering makes sense and I believe your results will be nice. To make those 2-4 planks stand out even more, adds charecter and that "shopped" look!

Keep going, you're doing well in my book!

Yes Turbo,Stay Safe

Thanks for the well wishes! I am a firm believer of "it's your railroad, run it the way you want" however, I do want to make sure that i am able to replicate a realistic looking model. I dont have any experience with wood planking left out to weather.

So should I maybe pre-weather just a couple individual planks, and then do the technique over it as on my first attempt?

they all look good to me. a friend told me that he used Floquil driftwood stain for the gray base, then used whatever wood stain for the top coat. stay safe overseas.