Since my last post I painted the curved backdrop corner, completed the Chapel Lumber Spur and finished the ground contours in this area. Before I place the ground cover, the next step is to paint the track and weather the ties before spreading the ballast. This is a time consuming process but well worth the effort.
My trackwork is a combination of flex-track and hand laid turnouts on pre-stained wood ties. The turnouts look great as built and could be considered finished, but they join section of flex-track that look like, well "flex-track." I could have just painted and weathered the flex track, but since I want it to all look homogeneous, I decided to weather it so that it looks like it's all part of the same track structure.
For track weathering I once again turned to the scenery Guru, Mike Confalone, whose process is quite realistic. Mike spray paints all of his trackwork with a base coat of dark brown paint. He uses Krylon brown Camouflage paint applied from a spray can. That makes easy work of covering a lot of track very quickly. For me, I used the same principle only I use thinned brown acrylic paint that I applied with my airbrush simply to avoid the paint fumes. Same result, different method.
Next I used Mike's process of weathering individual ties using diluted washes of lighter colored acrylic paints. This is a very effective means of making plastic ties look like the real deal. The above photograph shows some of the flex-track ties weathered in this manner. The results are instantaneous and will look even better once the ballast is applied and the rail is weathered with weathering powders.
As I mentioned above, the individual ties are painted in a random manner with varying shades of gray and yellow washes of acrylic paint. There is no right or wrong here as long as you maintain the randomness of painting the ties varying shades of the base colors. I use a piece of card stock as a pallet and mix shades of colors together and add some water to the brush to make a thin wash. Occasionally, I'll paint a tie a dark gray color to represent a new tie. The first 3 tracks in the photo have had their ties weathered and it's starting to look like a yard ladder.
I also started building the structure that makes up Chapel Lumber Yard. It will be a series of buildings featuring two connected warehouses adjoining an office/showroom building. My version is more representational than accurate, but should help capture the feel of the original structure.
Bob,
ReplyDeleteThis is another test.
Ben
I'm not sure what I did, but it worked. To answer your Bachmann question, the glass jars are heavy. I assume the product is real crushed rock. I chose it because I like the light colors. After I ran the local shop out of supply, I ordered from Walthers but that runs the shipping up due to the weight. You are right about the stuff disappearing into the layout. It's unbelievable.
ReplyDeleteSince I am using light gravel colors, I am going to try a test by using some play sand which is very light in color and very cheap at Lowes. I will try to grade with the cheaper material and then sprinkle on a thin layer of the color and see if it will cover well enough.
If you are up that way Northeastern has set up a supply shop of their materials in Methuen. It is operated by the same fellow who used to run Modelers Junction. Also try the Task Board. I know you will really like it,
Ben
Thanks for the ballast tip, Ben. I'm using up my supply of ballast that I bought many years ago from a company called The Rock Quarry. It was real crushed granite and I really like the stuff. The company is long gone, however. I bought it from the local hobby shop years ago and when I purchased it the shop owner told me that the manufacturer shipped a case of product that was ground too fine and looked like powdered stone. The company credited him for the material and told him to just dispose of it because it was too heavy to return. He asked me if I wanted it and I took all that he had in various shades of gray. It turns out that the stone powder is great for shading ground cover. I'll post some examples in an upcoming post.
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