Viperman's HO layout progress

[doctorwayne]

I did apply all the paints by brush. I don't even own an airbrush.

In my opinion, brush painting is the best method for painting rail - a fairly stiff brush lets you "work" the paint around moulded-on details on the ties, and a fairly wide brush (at least 1/2") allows you to paint more rail between re-fills. Brush painting also obviates the need for masking nearby scenery, etc., and avoids the dried paint "dust" that fills the air when airbrushing or spraying - dust that will eventually contribute to your future track-cleaning pleasure. If you use a water-based paint, such as PollyScale, there's no odour to contend with, and clean-up is easy. I generally paint 12' or 15' of track (both sides of both rails), then use a dry rag stretched over my fingertips to wipe the dried (but not hardened) paint from the rail tops. You can do that much track even if you have only five minutes of "spare" time, and clean-up is as simple as wiping the top of the paint bottle and rinsing out your brush.

The boxcar red does not look right to me either, but that is what I was reading in some articles/books on the subject. The rust to me doesn't quite look dark enough, so I do like the idea of adding the black to it too. I'll continue painting the ties in boxcar red, since that does have more of a wood look to it, then apply a black wash over them to "grunge" them up a bit.

Rail colour varies due to many factors, including locale, climate, amount of time in-service, commodities carried, etc., etc. For the most part, I used PollyScale Roof Brown, straight from the bottle. Darker colours seem to minimise rail height, while lighter colours can have the same effect if you also lighten the ties.


Here are a few prototype examples:

The track nearest the viewer is new - note the dark ties and fairly bright rust on both the rail and tieplates. On the older tracks, dirt and grime has softened the rust colour and lightened the ties:


The track in the foreground has a light patina of rust on the top of the rail (difficult to model, and still expect your trains to run ), but the sides of the rail are pretty dark - a combination of grease, oil, and dirt. The ties are barely distinguishable:


For mainline track, there are lots of colour options:








(Photo courtesy of Mister Nutbar)






Wayne