I am hand laying track with Fast Tracks. Since Floquil is no longer manufacturing paints, I am at a loss with how to paint my track work. I used to use Floquil rail tie brown, either out of a spray can or airbrush.
What are you folks doing to paint your track, these days?
Well, even though it’s gone the way of Floquil, too, I found Pollyscale to yield the best results: easy to apply, a bottle goes a long way, and no stink. I still have a fair amount of Pollyscale paint on-hand, so it would be my first choice. I did all of mine, well over 200’ of main line alone, using a fairly-stiff chisel-type brush. Once fully-cured, it’s very durable, too…moreso even than Floquil.
Nowadays, I might suggest Scalecoat, either I or II (chemically, they’re very similar, using the same components but in different proportions).
There are several newer brands of paint nowadays, too, but many are airbrush-ready, which means that they’re not very useful if one prefers to use a brush. While I’m very comfortable using an airbrush, I wouldn’t do so for painting rails or ties.
Wayne
I used to go with the Floquil Railroad Tie Brown too.
DSC03134 by wp8thsub, on Flickr
These days I mostly use Rustoleum’s dark brown camouflage. I apply with the spray can wherever possible, but in tighter areas I spray some into an airbrush jar, add some thinner, and run it through the airbrush. For secondary tracks I add some drybrush weathering on top of it with acrylics.
I’ve tried Rob’s Rustoleum dark brown camouflage and liked it. Here in the photo below is the track painted from the Rustoleum rattle can and it is rather dark; as Rob noted, it will need some weathering to lighten in up a bit.
On my last layout I used Rust-O-Leum from a can, a dark flat brown color.
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I thinned it about 50% with mineral spirits and airbrushed it onto the rails. I did this outside before the track was installed.
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-Kevin
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For the guys who use rattle can sprays, how do you remove the paint from the top of the rails no nicely?
Whenever I’ve tried that, it seems I spread the cloth hard enough to where it picks up paint off the sides of the rails too, which I don’t want, so i have to go back with a brush and touch it up. If I go too softly, I end up spending a lot of time wiping the rails.
I’ve recently used Rustoleum Can paints, black and leather brown, mixed together on a pallett sometimes, as I move along painting the sides of the rails and the ties with a chisle brush. It seems to be a quicker overall process for me since I struggle so much removing the paint using the spray method.
I also used a Rustoleum camo brown. I used a small 1x2 block to wipe the rail tops, before it dried too much. I may have dampened the wood just slightly with denatured alcohol, I forget. I imagine the wood might slightly wrap below the rounded railhead, enough to pretty much clean the wheel contact area without cleaning the side of the rail.
BTW, I was too heavy handed at some turnouts with the rattle can paint, which resulted in too much paint on the ties under the points movement section and some sticking points. Some hand movement and some solvent solved that but I should have been aware of the potential problem and been more careful.
Hi,
I like to lay down a base coat of the Rustoleum Camo Earth Brown making sure the rail sides are covered. Then from directly above so that I try to avoid getting any on the rail-sides, I lightly mist gray and just a little red primer to give a little variation to the color and the gray helps make a sun-faded look to some of the ties.
Track_paint by Edmund, on Flickr
Like Paul, I lightly wipe the tops of the rails as soon as possible after painting. I found that Naptha (Zippo lighter fluid) available in quart cans from hardware, paint or big-box stores, works very well with little fumes.
Naptha_clean by Edmund, on Flickr
The small block there is a hard felt pad just like the old-school chalk board erasers. I’m not sure where you could find something like this, maybe a craft store? It works perfectly to hold just a bit of naptha while wiping off the rail-top.
A small block of wood wrapped in a small square of cotton tee-shirt rag might work, too.
Here’s the same scene after ballast:
Track_joint1 by Edmund, on Flickr
Later I’ll add grease streaks using an airbrush and sometimes using a paint-pen (Testors) I’ll highlight individual ties since some are replaced at r
Ok. It seems that the best way to remove paint from the tops of rails is to use a hard-ish block of material and wipe when the paint is wet.
Wonder what material works best.
I have tried before to let the paint dry a bit then use an old credit card to scrape off, but my bad timing of when to scrape made me work harder than I thought I should be.
Would using craft paint work for painting the track? Craft or even latex paint is far safer to use indoors than spray paint. Given the challenge of removing paint from the top of the rails, is the effort with the trouble?
Yes I use craft paint to do the sides of rails, it is time consuming, but very little gets on the ties.
I then randomly paint a few ties with various shades of faded black/grey to simulate weathering.
Do not paint with craft paint before laying track.
Dave
I did not find craft painting that time consuming and if some of the brown gets on the ties thats ok since that happens on the prototype. Only thing is you might need than one coat to get the desired effect.
Doughless,
It was Rob Spangler who said he dragged a utility knife blade across the top of the rails (box cutter blade).
I tried it and it worked great. Scaped the dried paint clean off for the most part and left the paint on the sides completely intact. I was pleasantly surprised at how well and easy it worked. No worries about paint coming off the sides of the rail, no touching up needed.
I just held the blade across both rails and pulled it along to scrape the paint clean off; might have had to go back over a couple spots a second time.
I now use an airbrush and spray camo brown on the works. I scrape the paint off the tops of the rails with my thumbnail. I use a rusty rails roller to apply rust randomly along the rails, tie plates etc. I also use it to roll random greys and other colours along the ties.
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I did not use a rattle can, but to remove paint from the top of the rails I have always used a FRESH SHARP single edge razor blade help perpindicular to the rail top. Use minimal pressure. If the paint is fully cured, it will come right off in a single piece with no damage to the rail.
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If you press down, you will damage the rail. The blade must be perfect and the paint must be 100% fully cured.
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This takes no time.
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-Kevin
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I used Rustoleum camo dark brown. I first tried using a combination of brown and then rust red but I couldn’t get a consistent ‘rust’ effect so I switched to just camo brown. I tried a variety of things to get the paint off the top of the rail but I found the new razor blade while still damp worked best. After drying completely I would come back over using the ‘rough’ side of 1.5"x3" blocks of masonite for additional cleanup. I did about 800ft of track using this method. It was long and tedious because I would spray for 10-20 minutes, clean the top rail, and then let the room air out for a couple of hours.
I did the same for cleaning off the rails, a new blade and the masonite. I got to thinking, if the masonite worked good on the variety of home made track cleaning cars, the rough side world be good for cleaning off the paint.
Welcome back, Onewolf.
Mike.
What about using flat latex paint for the track/ties?
For the top of the tracks, before the paint dries, you prob also can use a rag dipped in paint remover. I’d I’ve read some apply soap to the top before painting. Doing that apparently makes the paint come of easily.
I prefer to paint at the workbench, before installing the track on the layout. I apply Neolube (from MicroMark catalog) to the rails with a small flat brush. Neolube dries to a flat, dark gray finish. When dry, I use a BrightBoy to clean the tops of the rails.
The track I use has black ties. I leave about half the ties black, and brush randomly paint the rest different shades of brown / gray with acrylic paint like Vallejo paint. Once on the layout and completely in place, I add some weathering (my layout is set in winter, so it’s a dusting of white weathering powder) to blend the tie colors together a bit, but leaving enough color visible so the ties don’t all look the same. (That’s the theory anyway.)
Doesn’t painting the track before installation make it too stiff to produce smooth flowing curves when installed? I know my track is stiff as a board after painting.