Ahh cheers
I have just done a small spot weathering the ties using AIM powders and wow… I like it,
I live 5 minutes away from CN main line and have dozens of pics using my DSLR camera of some up close track pics. I am surprised the color variations you get on ties, dusty brown,oil,rust stains,dirt.
I think I know what I will be doing the next few days.[:D]
Ach, youse guys!
LION puts some black, gray and brown paint all in a plastic cup lid: A little pool of each and then uses a fine paintbrush. Well, it does not need to be that fine!
He than just paints away on his tracks. Of course LIONS do not use ballast, as they have little place in subway tunnels, but if your ballast is solid, it should make no difference. LION does not worry about getting paint on top of the rails, it scrapes off easily enough. On tracks that are ballasted, the LION does not use glue to hold the ballast, but allows gravity to do its magic, and so it can be brushed away and then put back in place.
I take a smallish cheap artist’s brush, the ones with the synthetic whitish bristles, and I trim them for length and trim them so that only maybe 20 bristles remain near the center. This thinner and stiffer brush does a fine job getting just the right amount of paint on the rails if one takes his time.
Wipe the rail top immediately after doing maybe a foot. Do hurry that part, but don’t mar your paint job!
I preter to have some paint show up on the tie plates and ties…just like in the real world.
I used Tamiya “Red Brown” for this outside diorama. Looks pretty darned good to me. [8D]
Crandell
I have the rusty Rails painter it takes a few tries to use it, after the paint starts to flow you have to readjust the roller dont worry about the nut you have to use a fine phillips head screw driver and tighten it almost til the wheel wont turn and try it and back the screw out a tiny bit at a time. Takes a while to get used to it once you fine the fine adjustment it works like a dream
thanks for the tips guys.
I started working on the ties today.
See my method on YouTube.com under diamonjim6
Call me lazy and I wont argue.
I use the Rusty Rails roller but when I saw that you had to clean out the tube and jar after you finished I said no way.
I pour the Rusty Rail paint into a small jar cap and dip the roller in the paint. The Rusty Rail paint has a good color but by just dipping the roller you could use any paint. The roller is of perfect size for the rails. Two rollers come with the kit, one for HO and one for N.
As has been said a rust look on the ballast next to the track is typical on the 1 to 1 RR.
Bob
I have used the Floquil pens - they are more like magic markers - and they work really well - much better than trying to use a paint brush or the Rusty Rails device. The three colors are Rail Brown, Railroad Tie Brown and Rust.
Sounds good. The LION could try it, but that would entail spending money.
ROAR
I tried the Rustry Rails device in the past and found it extremely messy. I was using the small paintbrush methiod but not getting anywhere fast. I have a limited tolerance for ‘tedious’ work so I would only do a small section at a time. A couple of times when I was at the hobby shop I looked for the Floquil pens but they were always out. Then a new shop, railroad-only, opened up so I stopped in to see what they had. Not too much but they DID have stock of the Floquil pens. The first time I tried them I was able to double the amount of track I had painted in only an hour - the previously done part with a brush had taken me multipel sessions over several days.
Some say the pens leave an opaque finish - well, I do two coats anyway, first rust then grimy black. The other trick is getting fille around the ‘spike’ detail on teh flex track, so bare spots don;t show through. This I seem to have solved by making two swipes with the paint pen, once in one direction, then back the other way. It fills in around the spike detail without glopping up the paint. I really don;t care if these are more expensive than buying a jar of paint, to me this seems like a case of having the right tool for the job and makes the task of paintign the rails almost pleasant.
–Randy
thanks for the tips guys.
What Im worried about if I do paint the rails and some happens to go between the rail joints will that disrupt power? as in the paint act as a insulator?
here are some pics of my weathered ties so far:
All of my joiners are powered, this is how I feed power to my track. I’ve never had a problem with paint.
–Randy
I have to agree with Randy on this one - I use the Floquil pens and love them. I can start and stop anytime I want and just put the cap back on when done. I do several feet at a time and use this task as a fillin when not sure what I want to do on the layout. It works great and I tend to go over with a second coat, sometimes using Rust or Brown on the second swipe. I had to order mine online since the LHS didn’t have them.
-Bob
Hi Fellas,
Just going back to previous thread, has anybody had success painting the sides of the track using a microbrush? I was planning on doing this with some polyscale railroad tie brown. Im a just wondering if it will cause any problems with painting accidentally getting in the rail joiners like I was saying.
I guess if paint got in them by mistake I could go back clean up the paint around the joiner and solder the track joints right? unfortunately I never did this to begin with as it was a small layout and I was still learning[:P]
Assuming the rail joiner is meeting the rail with any kind of close contact I think it is unlikely that paint would run down into it and create, in essence, an insulated rail joiner. As my post from long ago pointed out I have used the Testors/Floquil paint sticks and that paint tends to stay put, and is not usually applied thickly enough to run. Shaking it thoroughly helps make it good and viscous.
As to a microbrush, do you mean one of those things that look like a tiny Q tip? I think the brush aspect would wear out before too long. But they could be good for extremely special work where you want more control than the paint stick gives you.
Dave Nelson
Painting the rail joiners is the norm unless you plan on taking the track apart. After being painted you won’t be able to slide them.
If you have used water based paint and need to move the joiners later you can soak them with wet paper towels to loosen the paint. This worked for me.
Bob
Jeremy:
I switched from a regular small paintbrush to a microbrush for painting rails and am happy I did. I use the size with the yellow handle and the tip slides along the rail very well and covers the foot,web and the side of the top nicely. I haven’t had any trouble with paint in the joiners. I solder all joiners except for those associated with turnouts so I can remove them easily if needed.
Joe
By the way, I like your track weathering work to date.
Cheers for the tips guys, thanks for the nice words Joe.
I find the the white handle microbrush works for me the best, the yellow one works great too. But if I do run into electrical problems It would be solved by going back and soldering the joiner right?
Floequil roof brown painted on w/ an older small brush seems to work best for me. If the brush is too soft, clip it a bit shorter. I like to use a small jar cap or those metal caps from Pilsbury cinamon rolls a a pallette. this allows you to place gobs of the paint and just dip into thinner and keep painting as the solvent paint will try to thicken/ dry. Floequil rust applied thinned out and/ or dipping back and forth between the roof brown and rust gives a great weathered look. To weather ties (hope they are brown tie), Joe Fugate’s method of using Tempra powders dusted on and wetted will weather/ dirty up the ballast as well as weather the ties. you just need to experiement w/ what mixed colors of black/ white and brown will produce the desired results. I would go close to the gray of the ballast first to get a fell for just how much to darken the ballast. Later after satisfied w/ ballast/ ties additional touch up of the rails w/ thinned rust even allowing some to drop on the ballast and ties. Sounds tedious, but will go rather quickly once you find the method that works for you.
Cheers Bob, I vaguely remember that article by Joe. I will have to track it down again. I think I might know how to approach it now it was just the electrical portion that had me a bit stumped [:P]