Track Painting

One of my layout goals for this year was to paint the track, and I'm now about 95% of the way there with 2 months left in the year. Yesterday I was granted a large block of time to do what I pleased, and I seized the opportunity to lug the compressor and airbrush from the basement up to the attic and paint the track.

I used Vallejo Game Air Charred Brown (72.745) thinned about 4 parts paint to 1 part Vallejo airbrush thinner. It took 2-3 passes over each section to get a good coat, and I ended up going through almost 2 bottles of paint. To avoid getting paint in the electrical contacts at the point hinges, I didn't spray these areas and will come back later to brush paint them. It would have been really tedious to brush paint all of the rails even on this small layout, so the airbrush really saved the day here. In addition, it wouldn't have been feasible to use an aerosol can in the attic - too much overspray and fumes.

A scrap of 2x2 wrapped with paper towel was handy for wiping wet paint off of the rail tops.

Conspicuously unpainted in the first photo is the siding in the middle of the layout that will serve the feed mill. This was intentional, as it occurred to me recently that I should realign this track to be parallel to an adjacent street. I started laying out the streets earlier this year, and as shown on the photo below, with the current track arrangement the feed mill would end up in a triangular-shaped lot that would look unusual in context. 

It shouldn't be too difficult to realign the siding, other than now I'm wishing that I hadn't soldered the rail joints. 

Bev-Bel TP&W PS Covered Hoppers

 Over the years I've acquired four of the Bev-Bel/Athearn TP&W Pullman-Standard covered hoppers: one each of the yellow and gray and two of the red. These cars have remained unbuilt because I've lacked a good way to paint the underbodies, slope sheets, and brake gear - which are all unpainted black plastic - in colors that match the rest of the car. Now that I have an airbrush, I can finally paint the unpainted parts in matching colors and build these cars.

This project seemed like a good choice for a novice airbrusher - all of the parts to be painted are somewhat concealed on the finished model - and I'd also get some experience with attempting to match factory paint. This project was also my first experience with Vallejo Model Air paint. I have a strong preference for water-based paints and, thanks to Testor's, there aren't many water-based model paints besides Vallejo left on the market. 

TP&W 18140 (gray)

I started with the gray car back in April. To my eye, the following paint mix is an excellent match for the Bev-Bel gray:

• 1 part 71.046 Pale Blue Grey
• 1 part 71.276 USAF Light Gray

I thinned the mix 4:1 with Vallejo airbrush thinner and had good results spraying at about 25 psi. I sprayed the paint directly onto the black plastic and I was pleased to get a smooth, opaque coat. I was not pleased, however, at how easily the dried paint flaked off. The minimal handling required to remove the parts from my painting handles and finish assembly of the car resulted in the paint chipping off in several places. It wasn't a big deal to touch up these spots with a brush, but this experience did make me nervous about future projects where I'll want to do multi-color paint schemes with masking. I always wash plastic parts with soap and water prior to painting and don't handle them with my bare hands after washing, so I don't think the issue here was that dirty parts affected the paint adhesion.

TP&W 18102 (yellow)

In July, I moved on to the yellow car. Knowing that the yellow paint wouldn't cover the black plastic very well, I planned to do a white undercoat. My original plan was to just use white Model Air (71.001), but following the gray paint flaking experience and more time spent reading Vallejo's instructions, I decided to use a white primer instead. I used Vallejo Mecha Color white primer (70.640) because that's what my hobby shop had in stock. I didn't thin the primer because Vallejo cautions that thinning their primers degrades some of their qualities, but I had to crank up the air pressure to almost 40 psi to get it to spray well. 

I had a much harder time matching the yellow paint than I did the gray. I initially thought that a 1:1 mix of 71.033 Yellow Ochre and 71.078 Yellow would work, but upon closer comparison to the Bev-Bel paint my mix wasn't "golden" enough. There are very few yellow options in the Model Air line, but fortunately the Vallejo Game Air line has some golden yellows and these paints can be mixed with Model Air. The following mix is the best I could come up with for the Bev-Bel yellow:

• 2 parts 71.033 Model Air Yellow Ochre
• 1 part 71.078 Model Air Yellow
• 1 part 72.707 Game Air Gold Yellow

As expected the yellow went on rather transparent and required multiple coats to get an opaque finish. The yellow paint over primer combination produced a much more durable finish than the gray paint directly on plastic, so I will plan to always prime bare plastic before painting with Model Air in the future.

TP&W 18175 (red #1)

I painted the two red cars in October. I painted both of them at the same time but one of them required renumbering so I'll write about that one in a separate post. I used Vallejo's Grey Surface Primer (74.601) on the bare plastic. As with the Mecha Primer, I didn't thin it and had to spray at about 40 psi. The red proved even more difficult to match than the yellow. My method of color matching - brush-painting small patches of various test mixes on the insides of the shell - didn't work very well because the reds are very transparent. The red colors also seemed to get darker as they dried, which further complicated matters. After a good deal of experimenting, the best match I could come up with was:

• 4 parts 71.003 Red
• 1 part 71.086 Light Red

This mix looked too orange when I first sprayed it onto the model, but it got redder as it dried and I was pleased with the final result.

Stay tuned for a future post about how I renumbered the second of the red hoppers.