I’d like to paint my flatcar decks (molded on plastic) a bare wood color. Because the cars are suposed to have just been shopped, I don’t need to weather them too much.
What is a good paint (brush paint) color that simulates bare wood?
Weathering with thinned washes is not a problem, but what has been troubling me is finding a good bare wood base color that can be brushed painted.
Craft paints were suggested, but I can’t find the color I need and I’m a bit worried about the thickness of those kind of paints.
I should add that my cars are “G” scale so I’ll need a lot more paint then if these were HO.
I do my wood flatcar decks in driftwood gray. Wood goes gray after about a year in the weather. A coat of light gray auto primer from a rattle can is a good base coat. Then you can dry brush it with a bit of white or a bit of black to bring out the texture of the wood.
I found a bottle of Testor’s Model Master Acryl at Hobby Lobby (don’t know if you those stores in your area). The color is of unfinished wood, the number on the bottle is 4673.
I’ve used Accuflex “Sand” acrylic paint to represent fresh wood. I haven’t tried but I saw George Sellios using “Driftwood” from I think Floquil (?) for older grayed wood.
Tamiya makes a spray can paint “Wooden Deck Tan” TS-68. A light spray of a India lnk / alcohol mix helps tone down the purity of this color but it nicely reprents a fresh wood deck.
Model Master Radome Tan is a good color for new, untreated wood; Testors Rubber is a good match for creosote coated wood. The Testors is the small bottles of model paint, not Model Master.
There was an article in RMC last year (?) about how to paint a plastic deck to look like wood. It is about 7 steps, but good results. I will have to look it up and post.
I know you may not be specifically looking for this kind of solution, but American Model Builder makes some really nice laser cut wood replacement decks for various makes of flatcars. They would still need to painted or stained, but they look really nice.
The article I referred to is “Painting Wooden Freight Car Floors”; Railroad Model Craftsman, February, 2006. (I could have sworn it was printed last year, time flies when you are having fun - or, perhaps, another seinor moment [;)])
