GEfan Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 I am nearly ready to lay my plastic sleepered track (C & L finescale OO) but am not sure whether it needs priming before painting. Are there any recommendations for this? The points are C & L timbertracks and I want to try and make sure the mismatch in sleeper materials is disguised. I am intending to use railmatch spray enamel on the sleepers. Any advice welcomed! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete the Elaner Posted March 29, 2011 Share Posted March 29, 2011 Hi & welcome. I think you'll find Andy Y's thread titled 'Improving Peco code 75' useful. It is in this section & I've just bumped it back up to near the top for you. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigwelsh Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 I'd suggest taking an offcut of the C+L flexi and painting various bits using different paints to see which one has stuck best after a week. Careful painting can disguise the difference between plastic and ply, we've done it on the MMRS club layout though we replaced all of our C+L with Exactoscale when we started rebuilding the layout. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karhedron Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 I gave my peco flexi track a blast with Railmatch Sleeper Grime without priming and it was fine. Wipe the rail tops before the paint dries and then buff them afterwards. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GEfan Posted March 30, 2011 Author Share Posted March 30, 2011 Thanks for the advice. Seems that it may be preferable to paint track before laying? I have tried samples of Rail match sleeper grime and it looks OK for darker coloured newish sleepers with a matt finish which is better than the unpainted plastic base. For the ballast I'm thinking of using dried sand - some people have advised against this as they think it is too gritty and may cause problems in mechanisms. I can't see why as fine modelling ballast seems to be much the same grain size as sand so providing the ballast is well stuck down I wouldn't have thought there would be any difference. Anyone tried sand? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigwelsh Posted March 30, 2011 Share Posted March 30, 2011 Anyone tried sand? http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php/topic/34314-sand-for-ballast/ Personally I think it looks fine for ash but Greenscenes proper ballast is spot on for stone based varieties. If you paint before laying you can then ballast as you lay which is much easier with C+L height sleepers as you only want one layer of ballast grains. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete the Elaner Posted March 31, 2011 Share Posted March 31, 2011 Anyone tried sand? Yes, I tried it on a test board. Unfortunately it is the one I cannot find & I had not taking a pic of it . I will certainly not use it on my layout though. It had no texture. It looked too smooth & paint seemed to seep through it leaving a yellow sheen. I tried several different ballasts & thought it was the least convicing. Some of my friends also saw it & all agreed with me. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BRealistic Posted April 3, 2011 Share Posted April 3, 2011 Sand as a ballast can look good if you take care to choose the right grain sizes... as well as colour. There's a place on the beach near where I live that is slightly gritty rather than smooth (no good for sand castles!). Fortunately it's not too overlooked, especially out of season! I first use a <1mm> sieve to get rid of the 'overscale' grains and then a very fine sieve to get rid of the 'underscale' grains... of which there are many. What remains is absolutely perfect scalewise (not all uniform either), and the colour is a really nice mottly brown. Enjoy a day at the beach GEfan and come away with all the ballast you'll ever need. Good idea to park nearby!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GEfan Posted April 3, 2011 Author Share Posted April 3, 2011 Thanks for the info BRealistic. At the moment I am just trying some general buiding sand which I had left over after some pointing work. I heated up a relatively small quantity in a pan to dry it thoroughly before seiving it with a kitchen sieve so I'm not sure what the mesh size is but it looks to be about 1mm. This removed the "rocks" but I did find that there were some very small fines left which may remain loose after ballasting with the pva glue water mix. I will try to get a smaller mesh to remove these as per your advice. Any idea what mesh size to use for the smallest grains? I am however quite pleased with the overall colour effect which is a mottled fawny brown. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Gwiwer Posted April 4, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted April 4, 2011 I use Peco Code 100 Streamline and have started to apply washes of acrylic along the track and including over the sleepers. The results are adequate if not to an exhibition standard. Using different dilutions and mixing black and burnt umber in different quantities gives the varied appearance of track over which trains run at higher speeds and leave just a little residue but with the sleepers weathered while in stations and at stop signals much more "oil drop" has been added by building up thicker layers of less-diluted paint which includes streaking it across the timbers of barrow crossings. It's a thought. It works for me and it means I can have weathered ballast as soon as it goes down as well. But sand I don't like and do not use for ballast. It's too fine for that purpose unless you are modelling in one of the smaller scales. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete the Elaner Posted April 6, 2011 Share Posted April 6, 2011 I use Peco Code 100 Streamline and have started to apply washes of acrylic along the track and including over the sleepers. The results are adequate if not to an exhibition standard. Using different dilutions and mixing black and burnt umber in different quantities gives the varied appearance of track over which trains run at higher speeds and leave just a little residue but with the sleepers weathered while in stations and at stop signals much more "oil drop" has been added by building up thicker layers of less-diluted paint which includes streaking it across the timbers of barrow crossings. It's a thought. It works for me and it means I can have weathered ballast as soon as it goes down as well. But sand I don't like and do not use for ballast. It's too fine for that purpose unless you are modelling in one of the smaller scales. Don't put yourself down. There is a wide range of effects on display at any exhibition & from your description, you've clearly taken more care when weathering your layout than a lot I have seen. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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