I know I have seen post about people using paint markers to paint their rails. My question is which color did you use and how did it turn out?
I also like the idea of painting track with a marker, but I have never done that before. I use Polly Scale Rust with a few drops of Polly Scale Grimmy Black and paint it on the rails with a small brush. It is very time consuming. Paul
Rich, I use Atlas flextrack, so I like to give both the rails and the ties a thin wash of a 50-50 mix of PolyScale's Railroad Tie Brown and Rust. Like Paul, I use a brush (about 1/4" flat). Doesn't take too long. Here is a picture of the results: Edit note - UBB tag modified to bring image up in post - Gats. [ 05. May 2003, 17:23: Message edited by: Gats ]
I am using Gunblue for the Rails. Gunsmith us it tu repair Gun's. Be carefull on the switches. [ 04. May 2003, 21:26: Message edited by: Eugen Haenseler ]
Eugen, I'm not going to give yet another complement on how great your layout looks, so... tell me about gunblue. How is it applied? Is it like real blueing? do you apply it cold? Give us a real close up of the rails, if you can. thanks, Dante
I'm coming up on this same decision soon on the new layout. On the old layout, I sprayed the rails with cans of Floquil roof brown, making sure I got at a fairly low angle to totally hit the sides of the rails. Worked and looked good. However, the new layout is in a bedroom, not a garage, so spraying Floquil is kind of out of the question. If I don't find another technique, I might have to move the layout outside for a day to do the painting. Jim
After laying the track, and soldering feeders, I brush paint the rails Floquil Rail Brown, then the ties Roof Brown. Then I randomly go over some of the ties with Rail Brown while doing touchup on the rails again. What I like best about using a brush, is that I usually don't end up stickying up the turnouts. I use a 1" square of cut up t-shirt and Dio-Sol to wipe the railheads right after painting. Because the wipe is only 1" square, I don't need to use more than a few drops of the Dio-Sol, which pretty much eliminates the stink. I like the Floquil solvent based paint best because it don,t chip off. I had used Blacken-it before with mixed results. Sometimes for some unknown reason the tails turn corroded green, so I discontinued it's use. I was told it uses a Cyanide mixture.
I tried hand painting a small test section with Floquil and found that it did not cover near as well as spraying with the cans. Did you use several coats, maybe? Jim
Here's a shot of a small test diorama I built in N-scale. I painted the track with a DecoColor Opaque Paint Marker (Brown) that I purchased at Michaels...
Hi Jim, Welcome to Trainboard. When I brush paint, it is a little thin compared to spraying, but I just realized why I didn't spray the rails... I had forgotten that I had pulled up my code 80 track and replaced it with code 55. And I was worried about overspray ruining the scenery, so I brush painted. After that, I just forgot that I had spray painted previous trackwork on the plywood plains. Yes, I do have to go over some thin spots a second time with the brush, but I also go over a few random ties too at that time to vary their apperiance.
Hi Cris, Yes, I put the Gunblue cold with a stick of wood on to the Rails. The colour is grimmyblack.
Robert, Thanks. Once I finish putting in all the limit/pressure switches to route the power to the frog, I'll be ready to paint the rails. I think it makes them look so much better. I'm using Code 55 this time around. Jim
