What is the best chemical to blacken nickle slver rails?
paint
Try paint. It works very well. Most metal blackening chemicals have an unfortunate tendency to eat plastic.
I used Polly Scale Railroad Tie Brown. See what you think. It goes on easily and quickly with a fine artist’s brush.
For sidings and seldom-used tracks, Floquill Rust. Coat your rail tops with a light film of cooking oil before you paint. Then when the rail sides are dry, wipe off the rail tops and rinse with a rag dampened with isopropyl alcohol, and you are set.
If you have seen the Micro Engineering weathered rail and like it, they sell the weathering solution seperate.
The ME weathered rail is great. However I ordered a bunch recently and they sent me the UN-WEATHERED versions! I got upset, but the online retailler guy I ordered it from worked it out with them (it was clearly ME’s fault as the packing list had the correct model numbers for the weathered track), so I had it sent back to ME and they would reimburse me for the return shipping.
I don’t know what exact methods ME uses, because I have the solution myself and use it on Atlas Code 55 turnouts…some of them tend to turn green! I cover those with a brown sharpie.
I never had a problem with the blackening chemicals with plastic…It comes in a plastic bottle after all!
Though I don’t like how it sometimes makes your track green.
When I started my current layout, I had considered going with the ME track, and noticed the price difference between the non-weathered and the weathered was minimal. I figured it was definately worth the extra little bit to go with the weathered.
Exactly, the difference is only about $1.25 per track bundle, just a few cents per track!
Not trying to hijack this thread…I have used both weathered and unweathered ME track. I have found the weathered track much more difficult to curve…have you developed some trick for working with the weathered track?
Don Z.