I'm trying out Tinweasel's rust effect. I bought some 0000 steel wool from my local ACO hardware store, filled a Reaper eyedropper bottle with it (loosely packed) and then filled the bottle about 75% full with the bleach / vinegar solution he describes. The steel almost immediately started to rust, and this oxidation is caused by the bleach I've discovered. To my surprise, vinegar (an acid) does more to polish metal by removing oxidation than cause the metal to break down. The bleach, although very alkaline, provides the oxidation reaction. Go figure. I'll let you know in a few days how it looks.
While at ACO I also picked up 600 grit sandpaper (impulse buy) and a bottle of (drum roll please) Simple Green! People have been raving about this stuff for stripping minis for years, but I'd never actually seen it in a store until yesterday. Then again, I'd never looked in a hardware store.
1 week ago
That rust effects seems very similar to a product I bought (Deluxe Materials Rust Effect). You mix a powder with a liquid and apply the resulting paste, and I expect the powder is simply metal particles and the liquid is the acid/ bleach mix. The results are pretty spectacular (I posted about it on my blog).
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your experiment!
You probably want to leave the cap slightly loosened until the reaction subsides in a day or two (Gas as a reaction byproduct, you know?) and make sure you shake it well to stir up the particulates whenever you're going to use it, same as you would with metallic paint - it has the same tendency to separate over time, and we're not talking mica or aluminum flakes here...
ReplyDeleteI don't recall if I mentioned it or not in the tutorial I wrote up and it's not really worth me double-checking at the moment, but if you use dry time extender (Liquitex Slow-Dri) or similar paint additives, then it might make the liquid get all crusty on your palette. Not necessarily a bad effect, as it gives the painted-on liquid rust a lot of texture if that's what you're after - just something to bear in mind.
The rust liquid might likely be light reddish-orange when it dries, so don't forget to shade it as you would with any other color, unless you want a really stark appearance.
Good luck with your liquid rust experiment! My bottle from years ago is still going strong, and no odd results with any of the numerous figures I've used it on.