Crow River Products - Magnet and Clam Shell Bucket

The Crow River Hayward clam shell buck and magnet are an easy build. There are instruction sheets included but everything is straight forward. All the gluing was done with Walthers Goo. What makes or breaks a model  like this is the final finish. I did not cover that in my work service car post and thought I should pass along my how-to's.

My bucket and magnet sits in Peter Mumby's TH&B work flat car.

Once built I always like to prime my casting with Floquil finishes such as grime or SP gray. These two items I primed with SP gray. A few days later I got around to the weathering process. I began by giving all the surfaces a fine mist coat of Floquil SP Lark Dark Gray by airbrush. One could use a very thin wash of the same colour. Brushing on Hunterline stains works well also. The SP colour I used is a mid range colour found between grimy black and light gray...kind of a Guilford gray, but a little darker. This toned down the bright gray and gives my powder something to grab on to. Although the finish drys fast it stays soft for at least an hour and will hold the powders nicely.

 I used only Bragdon weathering powders for this project. I began by dabbing some dark rust, then black and a bit of light rust on. I did not brush any of the dabs till I had all three applied. I then dragged my brush along all the surfaces filling all the grooves and cracks with the powders. I sometimes use my finger to work the powder on larger surfaces. Once I had the entire model covered I blew off what I could. The effect is very good at this point but I went back and highlighted some of the areas that would show more rust with a dab of the mid shade rust (there are three shades of rust in the four colour box). I again blew the excess off and set the models aside to dry. The decking of the work flats got the same attention although they did not need an undercoat to hold the powder in place on the real wood. The powder actually holds on well and stains the wood a bit. This style of weathering is very easy to do and will give even a rookie awesome results...George Dutka