I've recently bought an Italeri AB-40 Armored Car in RailRoad configuration. I havent painted any railroad vehicles before.

So I want to ask which color(s) to use on painting railroad wheels and how to weather them?

I have some alclad colors in my stash, particularly I want to know anybody tried alclad steel or burnt iron colors on railroad wheels?

I would greatly appreciate your experience on how to paint railroad wheels. My ab41 is about finished and I will soon start painting. The railroad wheels are one thing I have not experienced before.

Oykun:

Hi!

IF you are talking about the all-steel RR wheels...

The sides would be the prevailing vehicle base-coat color (sand?). The bearing surface (contacting those steel rails) would be nicely burnished steel color, on a currently-used wheel.

The BEST way to see what these would have looked like and what the colors would be on the bearing metal surface would be to go look at any train wheel in a yard or at the station! A street-car steel wheel would be the same. IF you see one of those various RR company service trucks... they may also have smaller-sized RR steel wheels that they lower for to go onto the tracks with (at least they do this over here in the USA...!).

Generally, you want the bearing surface to look like freshly used and rubbed (but not scraped or scratched) iron. The bearing surface of the recently-used wheel will NOT be rusty. It will also NOT be bright silver. I would paint that surface either dark gray or black or maybe "iron-color" (if you have a paint of this color), and follow up with using a standard pencil to graphite the bearing surfaces. It will be a dull shiny gray -

Cheers!

Bob

Here is a wheel set that has not been used in a while:



and a wheel set in daily use:



Within a few miles, a rusty wheel will become polished.

Ian