November 1, 2024
For the last several days I have been completing painting ties. They are now done in Proberta, Red Bluff, Cottonwood and Anderson. I have not done the main yard yet. Thinking I’ll just airbrush on a weathered grey except for the main line and passing tracks. That should save a lot of time.
I worked on 18″ sections putting on various mixtures of browns and greys and then while still wet took a wadded up paper towel and blotted them in a hammering motion. This reduced the starkness of some of the colors. After ballasting the ties and the ballast will get a black wash to further tie everything together.
On my previous layout, I used water and alcohol as a wetting agent. The alcohol removed a lot of the coloring from the ties. However, the ties had not been prepainted with an enamel. I don’t want to chance my hard work compromised, so this time will just add a little bit of soap or Windex (will have to research) to my spray before gluing down the ballast.
