Does anyone have a good formula for concrete gray paint? I have used Polly Scale Concrete and it has a green cast to it. Can this be toned down? The Aged Concrete on the other hand doesn’t really look aged. Can anyone help?
Larry
For my layout, I used a mix of white and gray acrylic craft paints. I put some white in a container and add gray until I get the color I want. Not scientific. I also add a little bit of water to thin out the paint. I tried a gray color from Floquil and was not impressed with how it came out. I am fairly new to this so I do not have many other methods to offer.
Thanks, Mike
I took a piece of aged concrete to Wal-Mart and had them color match it. They did a superb job!
Is concrete grey? [:-,]
Not all the time. When my father and I were pouring the front walfway for his house, we made it a light red, which has faded to pink over the years. We also poured the front porct in blocks of black, purple, green, blue and red.
I have used model flex and floquils concreat colors and now use a combination of cheap acrylics in various mixtures, light or dark grey base and a touch of black, white, tans, yelow. I have tossed a few batches but usualy get what I want. Each concreat mixture will be different as not all concreat is the same color due to age, weather ect. A friend of mine paints all of his concreat the same color, he likes that and thats great, but I prefer various shades, to me it gives a more natural look overall, but that is only my openion. having pictures of concreat really helps when trying to get it right ( to your eye) under your layout lighting. Pastel chalks help with weathering it also. Enjoy…John
Thanks to everyone for the input. I need to steal some aged concrete from my neighbors drive way to take to Walmart. I think I’ll for nightfall.
Larry
If you know someone that has a private plane and can take you up for ride, eyeball the concrete parking lots and roads from a birds eye view. I did and I can tell you that when it comes to natural color, not all concrete is created equal. Thsi is due mostly to the type of sand used. Here they use basically two types, fill sand which has a reddish tint (concrete made with this has a slightly darker color) and yellow (builders sand) which gives a lighter color.
Well if its any use i just took this. This is simply Humbrol enamel #121, air brushed on over plastic embosed sheet to imitate concrete block wall, inturn stuck to ply. It was given a wash of thinned ‘dirt’ after it had hardened. Ive tried a few so called concrete colors over time. Theres an excellant brand over here called Pheonix Precision Paints, they do a concrete color but im not convinced so i went with the above after a few experiments. I did get a few pictures of the real thing first though.
Admitedly, without the coat of grime, i doubt id like the ‘121’ on its own!
That looks cool but the trackside looks WAY too clean. Make scale “trash” by using bits of white styrene shavings, color some of them different colors, and thin some grimy black on it. Maybe even fashion some discarded aerosol cans out of thin brass tubing.
Yeh, i was thinking that, looks way to clean at the moment but i need to find a few pictures of this type of junk on the trackside first. Gota weather the bridge too!
Just come in from some real cruddy trackside…
trash - modern
- traffic cones
- oldstyle bike frames
- diversion and other roadworks signs with/without steel frames
- road works lights
- red/white and/or blue/white police tape
- rusting gas cylinders
- discharged fire extinguishers
- tons of sick yellow McD’s packaging
- lumps of cut down trees - some stacked
- wood chip piles and sprays from more recent clearances.
- Old batteries… car and rail usage
- all intergrown with brambles
- ivy and moss on walls and ground not covered in brambles
- discarded safety helmets
- at ;east one broken off shovel blade
- empty grease pots if there is any switchwork or a flange greaser.
- empty plastic oil cans lobbed over fence from back of garages
- plastic sheet and packaging… shredded and hooked in trees and plants.
- shopping trolleys
- more shopping trolleys
- bits of cut-off plastic gas/yellow or water/blue pipe
- taped up lumps of “free” newspapers and/or Yellow pages and/or free catalogues
- pallets
- broken pallets
- bricks
- lumps of masonry
- lumps of concrete
- lumps of tarmac
- rebar/weldmesh bits (bent)
- tyres/whole wheels
- ties/broken ties
- lumps of rail/lengths of rail
- over-spray of ballast chucked out by ballast cleaning machine burying early generations of crud… fresh on top.
- fridges/freezers/cookers/TVs/VCRs
- burnt out autos
- grass/ plants growing through regardless
- sapplings
- old cable runs or cable run supports/brackets
- old location boxes - removed and stacked or not.
- drainage pipes - stacked or scattered
- Christmas decorations
- Fox,cat and rat trails
- Savvy taggers and grafitti artists don’t leave cans 'cos they can be finger-printed but RR staff dump empty big roadmarker aerosol cans when
OR… it could be tidy - sometimes…
depends on era and local environment/recent hstory.
You could have that shiny new ballast stacked neatly with ties, rail lengths…
You could have a nice shiney new location box… if it’s really modern it would have a solar panel on it.
You could have a placed skip or those big plastic webbing bags full of ballast/bits
Even new cutting has to be “environmentally friendly” and, if it isn’t chipped, placed in bound stacks for removal.
Pallets of material must be level and at least 6’ back from the nearest rail (under 100mph).
The space is probably too small for a 20’ container but they do 10’ containers for building sites - and portaloos - and steel tool security boxes/vaults.
In the UK most of the areas where people will work close to the track get cordoned off - with light barriers or blue plasic mesh held up on steel pins most of the time.
Trash gets collected back into those big bags or skips. I know of one roll-off dumpster body that’s been full of junk so long it’s rusted through…
Not such a big list but it can all be pretty new… I’d create a pretty clear break between the newly cleaned area and the years pf accummulated debris.
[8D]