Hi,
How do you get that bleach loooking railroad ties? Also, What color paint
would you use to paint the rails ? I was going to use roof brown to do the
mainline, and rust for the sidings.
Sincewrely,
Chris
For the bleached looking ties I use a thinned wash of blackish-gray. This gives the appearance that the ties have been there a while but are still good. Also, not all ties are created equal. Make some lighter in color than others. For the rails I use Rust-Oleum Rusty Metal Primer. I mask off the ties and spray a thin coat on the rails. A good buffing with a piece of cork roadbed or a piece of cork for bulletin boards (available in the Wal-Mart stationary section) will take the paint off the railheads. Get it off the inside top edge of the rail also.
I use Rustoleum flat brown spray and Krylon Camouflage earth brown spray. I paint the ties and rails the same color after the tracks laid. Then ballast and weather with chalks and powders. (if you can deal with the fumes) It’s a lot cheaper then using bottles of Floquil or Polly Scale. One $4 can will do a descent sized layout and it’s oil based so it’s pretty tough. Whatever you choose, be careful painting around your turnouts.[2c]
Hey, Chris…
Try painting the ties with Floquil Grime with a little Primer mixed in (I like to paint with an airbrush). The Grime is a real light color to give the bleached look and mixing in some Primer improves the coverage. I like to use Roof Brown with a little Rust mixed in on the rails…not too orange, just a nice rich brown color.
Hope this is helpful
Bruce J.
Also, see the comment posted by tstage regarding last years MR article, How to Build Realistic Layouts.
http://www.trains.com/TRC/CS/forums/1050604/ShowPost.aspx
Regards,
Using the method with tempura paints described in that MR article by Joe, can result in something like this.
Have fun.
Regards,