Painting tracks
Track needs as much care in laying as it needs in appearance. Before any ballasting work, I like to paint the tracks with Polly Scale Railroad Tie Brown acrylic color. I used an airbrush, which speeds up the work.
I painted both rails and ties, but I placed a small strip of masking tape on the tunouts' points connection to keep paint from flowing into it. Here is where a brush will come in help.
In order to distinguish the main line from sidings and yard tracks I will use weathering powders: grimy black for main line, a brownish color for siding, a tan color for yard tracks.
Painting all the layout tracks wasn't much of a problem. The real pain in the &%# was to clean all the rail tops! It took a lot of work with the bright boy. Now I want to meet modelers who say acrylics don't stick well to metal.
Here is what I called my arm extention for three evenings:
It is a cleaning pad (aka bright boy in the USA) I bought at a train show in Germany last year. It is very fine, compared to its abrasive companions sold by model trains manufacturer and it cleans track without scratching the rail tops.
I painted both rails and ties, but I placed a small strip of masking tape on the tunouts' points connection to keep paint from flowing into it. Here is where a brush will come in help.
In order to distinguish the main line from sidings and yard tracks I will use weathering powders: grimy black for main line, a brownish color for siding, a tan color for yard tracks.
Painting all the layout tracks wasn't much of a problem. The real pain in the &%# was to clean all the rail tops! It took a lot of work with the bright boy. Now I want to meet modelers who say acrylics don't stick well to metal.
Here is what I called my arm extention for three evenings:
It is a cleaning pad (aka bright boy in the USA) I bought at a train show in Germany last year. It is very fine, compared to its abrasive companions sold by model trains manufacturer and it cleans track without scratching the rail tops.
6 comments:
Ottimo lavoro Denny, molto bello il tono di colore che hai scelto!
Grazie :)
Denny, il "lava diamant" è migliore anche della gommina Roco?
Costa caro?
Io lo trovo molto più denso e fine anche della gommina Roco. Ergo dovrebbe essere meno aggressivo sulla superficie di rotolamento.
Non ricordo quanto l'ho pagato, ma credo €5 o €10.
Tieni presente che da un Lava Diamant si può ricavare l'equivalente di due gommini Roco.
Hi Denny,
It's also worth cleaning the inside edges of the rail heads, especially the outside rail on curves. The paint on the inside of the rail heads can be a source of grime as wheel flanges rub against them.
(I'm sure you're not looking for more reasons to clean track!!)
Track is looking great by the way. I laid Chris Martin's layout in Atlas Code 55 a few months back and I was very happy with the results.
Steve
Good advice Steve! I certainly want to keep track maintenance at minimum in the future. Thanks :)
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.