Roadbed latexing (no trains, kinda' boring...)
Hi yall,
With all of the pre-Christmas activity going on, I aven't really had much time to make any dramatic changes to the Iron Belt layout recently. As some of the photos indicate, my track is still not all permanently leveled and/or secured. Before I put all the rolling stock back on, I want to get an initial layer of latex on all the unfinished areas so they won't have that ugly "plywood pacific" appearance. Just as important, I need to get all the tracks painted and the roadbed ballasted - that would be extremely difficult for me (psychologically at least) to do once I have trains sitting all over it!
Anyway, I figured I could post a few pics of what I've been doing a little bit each day over the past 40 days. Don't be alarmed when you see paint glopped all over the track in some areas - I've test-run trains over all of it since then and they did not hesitate anywhere.
Here is what the staging yard currently looks like:
These are the tools and supplies I needed. Note the label on the top of the paint can,
always save that so you can get more of exactly the same blend when you inevitably run out.
Since I wanted to avoid splashing any paint on the moving parts of turnouts, I used a micro-fine brush to apply paint to the ties and ground beneath them...
...and for everything else, a 1-inch diameter stiff-bristle brush for glopping and shoving paint onto, and completely around, the track and ties:
When the paint was semi-dried, I used a 1-inch scrap of roadbed cork to wipe, or scrape [if dried] the paint from the tops of the rails. Cork is the optimum material for this job, since it is firm enough to avoid sagging and wiping the ties, yet soft enough not to scratch the nickel silver rails.
...and thats "the way it is" as of Saturday, December 3, 2005!