I use atlas code 100 flex track what’s the best way to give the ties the old worn almost gray effect?
Thank you
I can’t help directly. I painted my Atlas brown tie code 83 flex with Rustoleum camo #1918 Earth Brown. That imroved the look a lot as the Atlas did not match the Walthers-Shinohara turnouts I used. I intend to do some additional weathering after ballasting (not sure which year).
I looked in my Forum Favorites and thought I’d have a thread there but no luck. Thus, a google search (site: cs.trains paint track). Perhaps one of those threads will be on target for the highly weathered look you want to achieve.
The black plastic look can be improved. Paint them with camo brown or rail/tie brown. After they are dry, use a wash of grey acrylic paint to weather some of the older ties on spurs/sidings.
Try this: spray or “paint” the black plastic ties with 90% isopropyl alcohol. It is easy and surprisingly effective way to get a gray tone out of black (either raw plastic or painted black). I have used it on tallow-load tank cars with good results. However it is unpredictable and not readily controllable. Try it on a sample piece of track until you get the hang of it. It might help to spray (rattle can) the track with DullCote first, as I note the gray effect can be more powerful on a “painted” surface than pure raw plastic. But by all means give it a try on the raw plastic.
Dave Nelson
Paint. Any kinda paint to kill the plastic gloss look. Real wood ties start out very dark brown, almost black. The weather out to lighter and lighter shades of brown, like phone poles do, and finally to a driftwood gray. Any of those colors, in a flat or matte finish will do fine. If you use a rattle can, or airbrush, you can save a lot of work later, by wiping down the railheads right after painting, while the paint is still wet, or at least not fully cured. This works best before ballasting and sceniking, 'cause you don’t have to mask off the ballast or the scenery. You do want to mask the points and other moving parts of turnouts.
Consider that the best thing you can do for your track is paint the rails. Covering the bright nickel silver rail with rust or brown does a lot of good things for the looks of the track. I just brush painted all my rail, only took a couple of evening. Between that, and the ballast, things look pretty good. I didn’t spray paint my ties.
George Selios published this method years ago: Spray everthing with Floquil Oak stain (no longer available, but the acrylic version to match is available from DeBen LLC. After it dries brush random ties with Floquil Driftwood stain (also, sadly no longer available, but De Ben makes an exact match) clean the railheads. Balllast. Brush the ties outside the rails with thinned Floquil Rust and the center with Floquil oily black (you know the drill). Some work, but looks really great. To this, I add tips from Frary and Hayden:using very thing earth color, flood the ballast and follow with black. This tones down everything and adds dimension.
Use photos for refererence wherever possible. Scan prototype sites and/or books for examples of the look you’re after.
Also note that weathring that looks appropriate on track with more scale sized details may not look as good on Atlas 100 due to the oversized spikes. Weathering with darker colors (or sometimes colors similar to the ballast) can keep the large spikes and other elements from standing out as much as they might otherwise.
This track was sprayed with Rustoleum camouflage brown. Ties on the secondary tracks were then dry-brushed with acrylics tans and grays.
This is the same track after bllasting and additional weathering. I did more dry-brushing after the ballast was glued down.
Similar weathering was done here on Atlas 83. The appearance of tracks can vary by use, again something that can be adapted from photos.
This yard received heavier weathering than the one above, but still with the same acrylics. The same paints can create a range of effects depending on how they’re used.