Ballasting and painting track

[rrinker]

So I stopped by the local Michael's to pick up some craft paints and matte medium. I sure hope matte medium is 10x better than white glue, because for the price of a small bottle of matte medium I can buy a gallon jug of Elmer's. Unless there's a REALLY good reason not to, I'm going back to much more affordable Elmer's for the rest of this project.

I can see this taking, oh maybe a year or so to finish - ok maybe not that long, but I am not a super patient person, and painting the rails is incredibly tedious, so I will only be doing short sections at a time. I am being picky and getting even the back side of the back rail - the one you's have to have your head inside the wall to see, but I'd know it wasn't painted the same as the others so I do it. I did manage to keep it off the railhead, but the downside of the small brush is I get about 3-4 ties distance per load of paint on th brush, after that it's like I'm drybrushing the rails. So it goes slow. I did about 6 feet plus a short siding in 2 hours - got a LONG way to go. That's about my limit before I start trying to rush adn then I'll mess it up for sure.

Ballasting too - definitely NOT somethign I find 'fun'. Shaping it, trying to get every grain off the ties - a small foam brush seems to work well, but sometimes it picks up too much. I only got a short section groomed to my liking so I tried to glue that much down. I previously had ballasted with 50/50 white glue and 70% isopropyl alcohol. It soaked in no problem, no puddles, no runoff paths. I started with 50/50 alcohol and matte medium - it just puddled on top. I added more alcohol, about 70/30 now, and it soaked in, but slowly. Maybe that will make the matte medium not as expensive, if I need somewhere around an 80/20 alcogol to medium mix for it to soak in properly. I couldn't find dropper bottles at Michael's so I got a small bottle of mustard at the grocery store that has a nice twity to open pointy spout for easy control. That worked out well. We shall see tomorrow after it all dries. It did soak in to the ballast so I don't think I'll have a crust on top problem. And I'll add even more alcohol for next time.

--Randy

[nachoman]

I went through the whole matte medium experience - and decided that white glue worked just as well. I'm not sure why people suggest matte medium.

[rrinker]

The usual reason is that it is not as shiny and it is somewhat flexible when dry.
I should have trusted my past tests and stuck with white glue. There was a whole arguement that track on foam board got louder after ballasting, negating the use of caulk as an adhesive. The section I test ballasted a few years ago, the sound diminished as the car rolled from the unballasted to the ballasted section.

--Randy

[Gary S]

Are you mixing the alcohol and the matte medium together and applying in one shot as you seem to indicate above? The usual method is to use either wet water (water with a bit of dish washing soap added to it) or diluted alcohol first to wet down the ballast, and then use white glue diluted with water second.

[Steamtrains]

Garry is right....It sounds as if you didn't prep the ballast by pre-wetting it before applying the glue mixture....

[rrinker]

No, I did not pre-wet, because when I tested this out in the past there was no need, not with alcohol. I tried the drop of detergent method and it fails utterly - the water here is too hard. That's when I hit on mixing elmer's and 70% alcohol and using that - it worked perfectly. No 'floating' ballast and it soaked right in like pouring pure alcohol on the ballast. I did some more today and added more alcohol, works better. The difference is matte medium instead of white glue this time. I'll be switchign back to white glue, matte medium is FAR too expensive.

--Randy

[doctorwayne]

Randy, if it worked well mixing alcohol in with the glue, it'll work even better if you pre-wet the ballast.
As for matte medium versus white glue, I've used both and the results seem identical. The main difference is the cost, with 8oz. of matte medium (around here at least) going for almost as much as a gallon of white glue. Neither will dry shiny if the ballast is sufficiently pre-wetted, and I can detect absolutely no difference between the two as far as noise transmission is concerned. Ditto for the proportions you use when mixing with water - mixed in similar proportions, the performance is the same.
One possible difference which I haven't explored is the removeability of ballast secured with matte medium. With white glue, you need only re-wet (preferably with "wet" water) the area, let it soak for a bit, then start scraping and lifting track.

If you get into applying ballast and scenic materials where there's any appreciable depth to the application, cost quickly becomes a major concern. For the area alongside the track, shown below, the rip-rap, sub-ballast, cinders, and ballast is over 1" deep in some places.


To properly secure it all, the area was saturated with wet water, followed by copious quantities of white glue mixture - I just kept adding more until it finally began seeping from the bottom of the piled material. When it dried, after at least a week, the area was solidly bonded together, allowing direct use of a shop vac when dust removal is necessary. The material looks loose mainly due to the ample pre-wetting. Failure to sufficiently pre-wet and/or apply enough glue/matte medium mixture results in a solid crust forming atop loose material. It may look good, but any contact heavier than a hard stare will break the crust, necessitating removal and replacement.
Matte medium has many uses, but, in my opinion, isn't the best choice for this job.

If painting the rails is tedious, it's probably because you're using a brush that's too small, requiring frequent reloading. I find that a fairly stiff 1/2" or 3/4" brush works well. The stiff bristles allow you to work the paint around the spike detail , while the larger size means fewer trips back to the paint bottle. I use PollyScale, and generally do between 8'-15' at a time (about five minutes doing both sides of both rails - turnouts do take longer). By that time, the paint has dried to the touch, but is still easy to wipe off the railtops using a dry rag wrapped over my fingertips. You shouldn't run trains for at least 24 hours after finishing, to allow the paint to fully harden.

Wayne

[rrinker]

Same here, the bottle of matte medium was $20, I can get a gallon of glue for that.

And NOW he tells me - haha different source said a 3/16" angled brush is best for rail painting - and yes that is the problem, it is so small I am constantly reloading it. Not to mention it is extremely difficult to get paint all around the spikes, so what I did so far looks ok from some angles but not so good from others. I'm planning at least two passes, one with rust and another with grimy black, but I'm goign back and getting a larger brush before I do more. I'll quickly run out of patience with what I have.

--Randy

[Steamtrains]

If you've got a small paint gun, you should try it....You can probably do five times as much track (or more...) in any given period that you do with a brush. It sure helps when you have lots of track needing paint....

[rrinker]

No paint gun. I was contemplating an airbrush and small compressor from Harbor Freight, not it's not a fancy Paasche but it seems to be a decent brush.

I did get a small sprayer bottle, so I filled it up with alcohol and throroughly wetted the next section of ballast - it did help. I now have one section between turnouts ballasted, as soon as the glue all dries I'll pose a loco and take a picture. The edges are pretty rough but I figure when I put down ground cover that will take care of that - right now it's ballast on painted pink foam, no grass or other ground cover.

--Randy

[doctorwayne]

In my opinion, there are a couple of reasons to not spray paint track, although you're right about it being fast, Gus.
My main objection is that any over-spray (and there's always some) ends up as dust - dust which will continue to haunt your efforts to keep your track, and even the room, clean. The only time I've ever cleaned my track is after ballasting or applying scenery nearby. Spraying is also difficult if you have some otherwise finished areas near the track, necessitating removal or masking. It would also, I'm guessing, be difficult to paint the normally-unseen side of the rails of an around-the-room layout - if it were me doing the painting, I'd need to wear protective clothing. Why paint something which you can't normally see, you ask? Well, digital cameras make it easy to place the camera on the layout and take photos from what are otherwise impossible viewing angles - angles which often reveal things normally unseen.
Brush painting is an activity that can be done any time a few spare minutes present themselves: got 10 minutes before suppertime? Ample time to paint a few feet of track, re-cap the paint and rinse out the brush. Even painting a large layout in this manner gets it done without allowing it to become tedious. I was surprised, actually, to find how relaxing this type of activity can be, as it involves almost no mental input. Also, you're more likely to quit when you've "had enough", since clean-up is so simple. If you've gone to the trouble to fire-up your airbrush, not to mention masking where required, the tendency is to "make the session worthwhile". Then, even airbrushing becomes tedious.
I currently have about 190' of mainline in service, counting staging where the rail is not painted. So that's about 175', plus passing sidings and industrial spurs: at a guess, about 275' of track in total, with both sides of both rails painted. It was neither tedious, nor did it take an inordinate amount of time to complete.

Of course, like most stuff in our hobby, there are few absolutely right or wrong ways to manage this task, merely recommendations and choices.

Here are some views from "the wrong side of the tracks":










Wayne

[P5se Camelback]

... One possible difference which I haven't explored is the removeability of ballast secured with matte medium. With white glue, you need only re-wet (preferably with "wet" water) the area, let it soak for a bit, then start scraping and lifting track. ... Matte medium has many uses, but, in my opinion, isn't the best choice for this job. ... Wayne

I haven't used matte medium in decades , but if I remember correctly, It is a polymer-based "medium" and probably won't "soften up" like Elmer's, which, again, digging deep into the memory bank, is either an aliphatic or a casein-based glue.

At Philadelphia College of Art in the early Seventies,
the largest consumers of Matte Medium were the very filty-looking folks from the Fine Arts / Painting Department
(They spent every available penny on paint and canvas, hardly ever ate and didn't sleep much either.)
Those of us in the Industrial Design Department only used it occasionally, thinned liberally and
airbrushed on some product mock-up that was too shiney, and needed to be "flattened out.".

[Gary S]

For the rails, I use a 1/4" wide angled brush. Various craft paint browns and umbers, squeeze out some of each on a small board, then dip the brush in random colors, that way there is a bit of variance along the way. Also, I know from the start that it will take two coats, if not more. I'm with docWayne, I find it rather relaxing, turn on the radio, and just chill out. I also handpaint every tie, using the same process, except various grays, then a black wash on each tie. It can actually be fun, just have to get your mind right, knowing that the entire layout will take some time, but the end result will be worth it.

As for spraying, for some unknown reason, I told myself that I didn't need an airbrush, and I am sticking to it.

[rrinker]

I'm definitely paintign the 'back' side - not only because the camera set on the tracks will surely see it, but I'd KNOW it wasn't painted if I didn't do it. I guess what I need is a bigger brush. I think I wouldn;t find it so tedious if I didn;t have to dip the brush back in the paint every 3 ties. I sort of like painting the handrails on my locos - very few come with the vertical corners properly painted yellow so I need to hit just about every diesel I own. I was afraid I wouldn;t be able to pull it off without getting paint where it isn;t supposed to be, but with my big magnifier and a small microbrush the ones I did so far came out ok.

I have thus far lived without an airbrush - haven't really seen the need. I have a bunch of undecorated locos to paint, but they all get one solid color and Scalecoat II comes in spray cans. So I'm all set.

I'm with Dr. Wayne, the onyl time I've ever had to clean my track is after painting - I didn;t do the rail painting on my previous layout, but no matter how careful some always gets on the top. I was using a spare finger to wipe it off this time the instant I noticed the goof, none stuck to the tops. The alcohol spray doesn't hurt anything, and using the mustard bottle to drip the matter medium on means it theoretically never gets on the railhead. The previous layout was even in an unfinished basement, no celing and nothign on the bare cement floors or walls. Running lots of trains, and no plastic wheels are what I say makes it so I don;t have to clean the track every week or even more often.

Next issue is figuring out what to have my tuesday night work crew do. One guy has absolutely no model railroad experience, last few times I had him drill holes for feeder wires and paint the foam with brown paint. The other guy has two layouts of his own, he's really good at lining up the wires fromt he switch motors with the little hole in the throwbar, but now all those are in place. His current layout is not yet ballasted, I guess I could let him have a go at that, if I get enough track painted.

--Randy

[dave1905]

Modge Podge Matte is essentially matte medium only a lot cheaper.