Track painting questions

[rrinker]

I've reached that point - or maybe I have.

FIrst q: paint then ballast, or ballast then paint? I've seen it both ways, the ballast first group usually says the little bit of paint that gets on the ballast makes it better. What says Big Blue?

Second q: rust/rail brown first, then grimy black, or grimy black then rust? Intuition says rust first for texture. Or I could just be nuts.

--Randy

[tetters]

Hey Randy.

Depending on your ultimate goals for your trackwork, for me personally I'm finding this time around for me its not really that simple of an answer.

Although I hand laid all my track, I opted to spray paint everything a base color of "leather brown" after I had spiked my track down, ties, rail and spikes. On my "first" layout I stained all my ties and then ballasted before laying down rail... but I digress...

So. To answer your question. I spray painted all of the track work first. Then ballasted. However, I've also been going back over the rails and giving them a brush coat of Rust or Grimy Black with some Floquil Paint Pens depending on where the track is located after ballasting. Then I plan to mist the center of the rails with an light india ink wash applied with my airbrush, once again depending on location. Each application giving some greater depth to the over look of the track itself.

[Gary S]

My preference is to ballast first, then handpaint the track with craft paint. No scientific reasons for this, but I don't want to spray in my train room, and seems when I painted the track first, the ballasting process made the paint darker. I also handpaint all the ties after the ballast is down, using various shades of grays and then do a black wash over them. Sounds tedious, but as DocWayne has mentioned before, it is rather relaxing, with no need to get in a rush, spend 20 or 30 minutes every now and then, before you know it, the whole room is done.

[rrinker]

What particular colors of craft paint did you use for the track Gary? Sure would be a lot cheaper than typical railroad paints. And easier to clean up. I'm going for that branch line that gets regular (daily) service but not dozens of trains per day look.

--Randy

[P5se Camelback]

I stain my ties in five different shades, from new, fresh creosote to faded-gray-ready-for-replacement. I spread them out on newspaper to dry. When dry, I throw them all into the same large coffee can (pianted M.O.W. yellow and marked "Ties") and just use them as they come out by the handful.

I glue them down, spike down the rail, and while running the obligatory testing for bullet-proofness, I do as Gary, run a #0 paintbrush loaded with a medium rust/rail brown paint along the rail web and by the time I'm certain it's good-to-go for ballast, I'm very close to having it all painted ... and it is threapeutic, just like hand laying the rail is.

A light over-spray of the same medium rust/rail brown paint, followed by a dusting of coats of grime, and a little grimy black around the points and frogs of the turnouts. It's all relaxing stuff!

[Gary S]

I should mention that my track is Atlas code 83 flex. For the rail, I use burnt umber, raw sienna, weathered black, and various other browns and reddish browns. I typically take a piece of 1 x 4 about 5 inches long as a pallet, put a glop of each color on it, and then make various shades of brown and put them on randomly. It definitely will take two coats to cover. So, the first coat could be all one color, like a dark brown.

For the ties, I do the same thing but use weathered black, various grays, even antique white and regular white. Mix various combos on the pallet, and then randomly paint the ties. Then a black wash later.

It is actually very easy to keep the paint off the ballast when painting the rails or the ties. I use a fairly stiff angled bristle brush, about 3/16ths wide. Also, the craft paint may be thinned just a touch (just a touch!) with water to make it flow better.

[rrinker]

Same track that I use. So, noted for shopping list over at the craft store. Thanks.

--Randy