I am at the stage in my layout building that i need to paint the track. The layout is a 4x8 with no more than 75’ of Atlas Code 100 track (the black stuff). I would like to paint it brown/rust/grime color, but can’t find a good way to do it.
i don’t have an airbrush, and can’t justify one just for this. i’d like to use spraypaint, but i’m not sure how good that looks. i’ve tried to hand paint some of it and it’s a pain to do one tie at a time.
any suggestions? if you’ve successfully used spraypaint, what brand/color did you use? did you learn any special technique that really helped?
I’m at that stage as well.
I bought a spray can of rail brown at the hobby shop and am going to spray the track (from the side, top, and other side) and then get some individual bottle paints (various earth, grease colors etc.) and dry brush individual ties here and there for variety.
Hope this helps.
Mike
If you want to paint the ties, you should be able to get brown, grey, and rust coloured paint in spray cans, if not at your hobby shop, then at a hardware or automotive store, or at Walmart. Be sure to get flat paint. For painting the rail, try using Polly Scale in the colour of your choice. I did my track (over 300’ worth) using a 1/4" brush, and while it’s boring work, it goes quickly and it makes a big improvement in the appearance of the track. Don’t worry if you get some of this paint on the ties, as once you ballast the track, you won’t notice any minor spills. I used a rag over my fingers to wipe the excess paint, even after it had dried somewhat, off the railheads: no solvent is needed for this if you do it before the paint hardens. In my opinion, the brush does this job better than an airbrush. The airbrush is useful for additional weathering, however, such as the effect of traction sand around rails on a grade, or for grease and oil spills.
We did the track with two colors, grimy black and rail brown, using a fine brush. The brush just fits neatly in the web of the rail. First is the rail brown, then a very light, almost dry brush layer of grimy black. Tried the trick of oil or WD40 and a foam bru***o keep paint off the running surface of the rail, but gave it up as too time consuming. Instead, after painting a stretch, I go over it with a rag. If small specs of paint remain, don’t worry. After about a half hour, but no more than an hour, go over the track with a Bright-Boy cleanign block. Any remaining paint on the railheads comes right off.
I just painted mine with a brush. It wasn’t as fast as spraying, but was a lot neater. I would paint about 2 feet or so, and then wipe the top of the rails with a piece of shop towel.
A good cheap way to do it is to use a camoflauge earth brown spray paint. (Krylon or Rustoleum) The earth brown color is pretty close to the proper color of real tracks. The paint is pretty tough and won’t flake off very easy.
You might want to take a look at my various posts on ballast and track. A uniform track colour is okay if that is what you want or you may choose to take more time and detail it the same way you would weather a boxcar. Whichever you choose you will have the pleasure of looking at the product of your time and effort every time you run a train over it.
A airbrush would be a excellent choice. You can control what you want on the rails and ties easier. I use gun blueing on the rails before i installed my rails then airbrushed it with polly coat rust and grimey black after ballisting the track in. Your best choice would be to get airbrush you can use it on other projects too.
Last night i sat down and bit the bullet. started hand-painting the ties. what surprised me was that it went quite a bit faster than i was expecting. i got about 8 feet done in just over an hour. not nearly as bad as i had imagined.
htere is a good technique in the kalmbach publication " trackwork and lineside details
first, wipe some oil on the top of the rails so the paint doesn’t stick…then use three colors of krylon paint, ruddy primer or red oxide primer, flat black, and primer gray…take some card stock and place it against the inside and outside of the rail and at a 45 degree angle, lightly spray the rail sides with the red primer, then remove the cardstock and from the top spray straight down on the ties with the black…once this is accomplished, in random places spray the track (also from the top in short quick bursts of the primer gray to highlight the track …wipe off the excess paint from the top of the rail and go over it with a bright boy to remove any paint that the oil didn’t stop the paint from adhearing to the rail…here’s a picture of mine before the ballast is added…chuck
dean 1230;
I have hand painted, spray painted, airburshed, even chalked track to get different looks. This is not an ad for Allen Keller, but on his Bluff City tape, about his railroad, he demonstrates how he weathers his track, and I do it the same way. Also, on tape II, Geaorge Sellios also demonstrates his process.
I have used even larger brushes and swiped the rails with rust then the ties with dark creosote colors, cleaned the railheads with a cloth or abraisive bar.
On my most recent railroad, the tracks and ties were weathered before being put down and I used black, gray, and rust colored spray paints out doors, then cleaned the railheads. Let eveything dry then lay the track and ballast it in the usual way.
Of course hand painting is great for detail, but with my eye sight I now look just for the over all effect, and spray painting or just swiping the ties and rail with larger brushes with dull browns, rust, black and earth colors for me are very effective. When cleaning, the cloth works great right after painting, and the abraisive bar works at about an hour.
Don’t use steel wool, it damages the drack and leaves shavings of metal for your locomotives to pick up and be careful with sandpaper. I have even used big pink erasers to clean the railheads.
WTRR
General Offices
Talk about a co-incidence !!! Just yesterday, I went to the hardware store to buy the paints recommended in the article. I haven’t tried painting yet; but if your photo is any indication of what it can look like, I think I will be quite happy with the results.
I don’t remember the author mentioning anything about using a piece of card. Why did you use it ?
If you use Tamiya acrylics (with a brush or airbrush), you can wipe the paint off the railheads using a piece of cloth or paper towel dampened with Windex. This will work even months after application. Windex will remove some other brands of acrylics also, but not all, so you might want to run a test if you use another brand of acrylic.
The 2 biggest advantages to this technique are that you don’t have to use a lot of pressure, and you don’t use abrasives that will scratch your rails.
Thanks for reading MR,
Terry
I use the card stock so as to not overspray the ties and everything else in a rusty color, …the card stock keeps the paint directed on the rail only…if i didn’t use the card stock the overspray will get on everything else i don’t want painted…chuck
Ah ! That makes a lot of sense. I’ll have to keep that in mind when I start painting. Thanks for the tip.
I’m guessing you painted your track after laying it. I was thinking of painting the flextrack before laying it; but then there would be all those little bare spots once the spikes have moved as you bend the track. That would mean I’d have a ton of annoying touching up to do. So, I figure I would paint after the track is laide but before ballasting or doing any surrounding scenicking.
