Is Walmarts Acrylic Burnt Umber a good colour for rails? I’m not great at colours. Thanks.
Brent
Sure. It will come out a dark redish brown. More brown with a hint of red. That will simulate old dark rust.
I agree, the colour is a good start. I don’t know how well those craft paints will adhere to rails, but it’s worth a shot for the price. Maybe wiping the rails’ sides with alcohol will be a good enough prep so that the paint adheres.
I would recommend you mix one drop of yellow with maybe six drops of Burnt Umber, perhaps also a single drop of red and see if that isn’t more convincing. I think BU is a little on the dark side.
-Crandell
Try it on an old piece of sectional track and see how u like it. As long as it’s acrylic removing any from the tops of the rails should be a easy.
The color will probably be close, but I don’t think you’re going to have much luck getting that water-based acrylic craft paint from Wal-mart to stick to nickel silver rail.
I’ve used it to paint metal parts of building and other kits, but usually have to spray the metal with an automotive primer first.
I think you’ll find that the acrylic will eventually peel off. A paint that I’ve used with great success for painting rails is flat latex. A sample can will last quite a long time. The color I use is from Olympic and is called ‘Rusty Rail’. the mix #'s are 105-8.5 107-8.5 109-8.25 113-10.75.
I have yet to paint track so cannot speak specifically to that application. However, strictly speaking, there is no longer “latex” paint, i.e., paint based on latex rubber. The ingredients are all chemical. Acrylic or so-called “acrylic-latex” is a common water-based paint category wherein an acrylic polymer is the binder; it is superior to vinyl-based or plain old, but chemical “latex” water paints in its characteristics and performance.
Dante
I paint all track light aircraft gray as a base. Then I go over it with a thin wash of burnt umber artist oil paint and paint thinner. Then I go back and hit the rail sided with a rust color. It looks great.
I painted all 800’ + of my NS track with both acrylic craft and acrylic model paints and after 20 years, the only places where it has come off are some soldered track joints that I forgot to clean the flux off with alcohol and a toothbrush…
I used to work part-time as in a paint and body shop repairing cars and there is an etching primer that you can buy that you can apply to the rails and your paint will adhere to it. It comes in a flat black color and you can thin it down with a 1 to 12 mixture of primer with thinner so that you don’t lose any details that might be lost with too much paint on them. I use this primer on all of the metal parts that I paint, it really makes the paint stick on the metal. Hope this helps, SteamDemon
If you want to paint the rails brown, I recommend ACE Hardware paint, color “Chesterfield F58”, interior/latex/flat. Use 2 coats. Nice, deep rich brown.
Dante’s post got me doing a lot of reading on paints. They sure have changed a lot in the last few years.
I think Acrylic is the way to go as its adhesion properties are now as good as Enamel paints. Acrylic paint stands up to more abuse. Enamel paint will still last longer than Acrylics. However this is now measured over decades or centuries, instead of months or years.
Acrylic paint will still work well if contaminated from a dirty, dusty train room. Whereas enamel paint will be greatly weakened by contaminants.
Oil based paints may also play havoc on materials we use in our hobby.
Thanks to everyone who responded. I hope I understood what I read about paints.
Brent
I only use oil paints and they work great. They just take a little bit longer to dry but I have had far better luck with them than I have acrylics.
I have used that walmart paint all over my rr&northern with great success, and it’s cheap for those of us on a budget you know the wife!!