Thursday, October 25, 2012

Painted Rail | 8 Comments - Click Here :

In the past, I've always spray painted individual rail sections with rattle cans of Floquil roof brown and grimy black before spiking it down. For this layout, I hand laid the un-weathered rail first. This created the problem of how to paint the rail once the track laying was completed. I considered using my airbrush; but it is a siphon feed as opposed to gravity feed (meaning it feeds paint from the bottom as opposed to the top, thus making it difficult to get it down low on the layout). Even then, it would require an extremely steady hand to accomplish.
Enter Floquil's Rail Marker set. What I would consider as one of the top tools to come along recently. I hesitated on them at first because I am using code 55 rail, and I thought the pen tips would be to large. As a test, I caved in and spent the measly $9 for a set of three (Rust, Rail Brown, Tie Brown). Am I glad I did! These things worked great!
I applied the rust as a first coat and it had a slight translucent effect after it dried. After letting that cure for two days, I followed up with a coat of Rail Brown. The results can be seen below. I am more than pleased with the effect and highly recommend these pens!
- Cowboy Up!



 
8 Comments - Click Here :
  1. Rail, track is looking good...I too have had success with the pens. My overservation was that solder joints and rail joiners do not cover quite as well.

    Keep up the good work...

    David Keith

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for your comments David. I had no problem with solder joints or rail joiners. Before painting with the markers, I went over every inch of rail with Tamiya's fine tip cotton swabs (another awesome tool I've just discovered!) soaked with alcohol. I paid special attention to joints and joiners.

    Darel

    ReplyDelete
  3. Those cotton swabs are great for cleaning drivers too. The com in several tip sizes. I use the smallest ones blunt and pointed.

    Just so you know - in case you don't know - rubbing alcahol has an oil in it so using that leaves a film. Don't know what you used nor have o noticed a great deal of difference between that and denatured but, something to keep in mind.

    Track looks great! Where's the train?

    Derrell

    ReplyDelete
  4. Good tip...Thanks

    David Keith

    ReplyDelete
  5. d,
    I used 70% Isopropyl Alcohol - 30% water. No rubbing involved ( :
    D

    ReplyDelete
  6. Darel,

    Great tip! Do the markers conatain the solvent based Floquil or water based paint?

    Doug

    ReplyDelete
  7. Doug,
    Thankfully, they are solovent based.

    D

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yes! Thankfully. You can sniff the water based ones allllllll day and they do nothing for you!

    d

    ReplyDelete