Ageing lumber loads

Nice piece of work Steve!

'faking' old wood: the more you just handle it, the sooner the result.

I use almost everything, from shoe polish, oil, wax, dirty cloth, and gloves I wear when I do metal repair work, or cleaning tools. Old dust from drawers and furniture, it's gold! Sun light is fine too. Within a few days fresh white wood already turns yellow.

I leave it then on my bench, every now and then when I am working on other things I grab the 'fake' piece, or let it roll or drop. That's for softening up sharp fresh edges and corners. Actually, it's repeating all the moves and grabs the original wood went through in its lifetime, but now in a much shorter period.

Kieffer

Leave the repro load sit out in the weather for a few weeks.

Gandy

Why would you want to do that?  The implication of old, tired looking wood is that your railroad is stuck with a load of lumber that none of it's customers want to accept!  I'd go with the new look - the implication being that you have so much revenue traffic that you have to press every piece of equipment into service to keep up with demand. 

good idea Steve. 

An old Yankee antiques restorer told about burying wood in the backyard for a while to age it!  I don't recall what the time period was, but it doesn't seem like that much aging would be necessary for us.

Hi Robert,

That's an interesting approach, didn't cross my mind. I am a bit focussed on the repair/ restoration thing I guess, but considering the 'play value' is a nice one.

That's at the end where these trains were made for, you're right.

Regards, Kieffer

I would age them somehow.  If they are transported in the open like that they are going to weather naturally.  The only way that wouldn't happen is if you had them covered and then it wouldn't really matter.

I say leave them outside for a week.  I think that is the best way to simulate an open load like yours.