Jenny Emily Posted August 6, 2016 Share Posted August 6, 2016 I'm thinking of building a few bridges in the garden, and wondered whether painting plastic bridge parts would help prevent degradation from UV light, or whether the plastic will still disintegrate anyway? My garden layout is OO so use of metal gets quite hard to look vaguely to scale. I was thinking in particular of the Peco girders. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyram Posted August 7, 2016 Share Posted August 7, 2016 Not sure of the answer to your question, but would love to see pictures of your garden layout. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PatB Posted August 8, 2016 Share Posted August 8, 2016 Well, I don't think I'd chance it here in Western Australia, where the sun eats anything claiming "UV stabilised" or "UV protected" for breakfast, but in the UK it would probably be worth a try. If I was going to put plastic outside, I'd be looking for a paint with a lot of solids in it*. Something white with good coverage, like a decent white spray car primer, should block a lot of the sunlight from the underlying plastic.Then whatever top coat you want over the top. If you really want to go to town, the traditional UV protective coat for fabric covered aircraft (where UV degradation could be lethal) is powdered aluminium suspended in a lacquer, so maybe if you can find some real aluminium paint it would work similarly. You might start to lose detail under too many coats though. As an alternative, you could add a layer of something like Armour All or one of the other coatings designed to protect the plastics on modern cars from UV. Most tend to be gloss, though, and might require regular reapplication. *Edit: I'm led to believe that high temperature paint sold for things like car exhausts and brake drums has a high clay content, although I'm not sure of the reliability of the source of the information. It certainly covers very well, suggesting that there's a lot of something very opaque in it, which may be beneficial. It takes forever to cure unless baked on though. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phill Dyson (onslaught832) Posted August 8, 2016 Share Posted August 8, 2016 Plasticard is OK if in a quite shaded part of the garden, otherwise UPVC is better Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny Emily Posted August 9, 2016 Author Share Posted August 9, 2016 Not sure of the answer to your question, but would love to see pictures of your garden layout. I can do one better - a video of the outdoors portion of the layout in its current form. There are lots of videos on it on my Youtube channel. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andyram Posted August 9, 2016 Share Posted August 9, 2016 A very enjoyable video Jenny. I will have to look at your YouTube channel. The layout looks fantastic. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
flapland Posted September 3, 2016 Share Posted September 3, 2016 I have used plastic decking boards for my patio railway. They are OK but they sadly expand and contract a little too much and I have to ease the curves in and out during the summer and winter respectively. Only a 3 or 4 mm or so but still a slight pain. Poor camera phone picture below. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Happy Hippo Posted September 4, 2016 RMweb Gold Share Posted September 4, 2016 Sadly, I'd say don't bother. My experience of stuff in the garden, admittedly in larger scales, is that plastic is a waste of time. I don't mean uv protected drainpipe and guttering and that sort of thing, but polystyrene type plastic. One way around you predicament might be to have metal/concrete/treated timber as the basis of the structure and then have a cosmetic and removable detailed plastic 'cover'. As Phill mentioned earlier in the thread, if the area in question is shaded, you might be OK but the wooden shed I built, with individual plasticard slates on the roof in 1:13th scale curled up and fell off in under a month. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Controller Posted September 4, 2016 Share Posted September 4, 2016 I'd give any building a good coat of car primer, inside and out. My friend, the Reverend (or Chris as he was back then) had scratch-built station buildings and signal boxes on his garden line in Swansea (a mile from the sea) which lasted about fifteen years. He didn't stint on the paint, and avoided composite construction (plasticard on wood or VV. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthur Posted September 4, 2016 Share Posted September 4, 2016 The Piko & Pola ranges of G scale buildings seem to be made in polystyrene, they're assembled with Polystyrene cement, and they last for years. However, they are very thick in section and moulded in large sections. There are not many, if any, small bits on them. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arthur Posted September 4, 2016 Share Posted September 4, 2016 I see the original question was about bridges. Okay, mines G scale, but I built a small section of plate girder bridge out of a bit of upvc square section down pipe and, not surprisingly, it's just as good today as it was when installed 5 years ago. I spray things with Montana Gold aerosols, spray paints of choice for graffiti artists, they also endure.... They might be a good choice of paint for any outdoor use. You can just see the bridge immediately to the right of the truss bridge and brick pier in this clip Edit; In fact it's right there in the YouTube link still, below the two locos. . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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