Dan’s Train Blog

Ok, I’m still not getting to my trains. I had this pre-painted 1:25 scale AMT 1962 Pontiac Catalina model that I had started and I needed to get it off my workbench. I had started it thinking “Prepainted, it will take no time to build.” Ugh.

The paint job provided was quite good but because all the parts were painted I had to use Crazyglue for all assembly. The model also has serious fit problems in the front end.

If you can’t make it perfect, what to do? Make it completely imperfect. I decided to weather the car as if it had severe flood damage and I came up with an extremely lazy way to do it. I dunked the whole car in diluted latex paint.

First I took a large plastic food storage container large enough to place the car inside.

Next I got my special “mud” latext paint and poured enough to cover the bottom about a quarter inch deep. This color is basically Olive Drab.

I filled up the container with water up to the level I wanted the car submerged and stirred up the diluted paint with a stick.

Each evening over the next week I’d scoop up some of the “muddy water” and baste the car, wetting it completely. At the end of the week I pulled the car out and let it dry.