Spray Painting Track=Electrical problems

[Herc Driver]

Is there some do's and don't when it comes to spray painting Nscale track? I am in the process of weathering the track with Tamaya spray paint and so far I like the results, but I've noticed a few electrical conductivity issues where the connectors fill with paint and decrease the power going through the rails.

Any good tips out there? What about spraying Peco Insulfrog turnouts? So far, I haven't painted them, but I'd like to - without ruining them.

[60103]

Herc: don't spray around the points or other contact areas. Cover them with masking tape. Afterwards you can go over the outside bits with a brush, but don't go near the places where the points pick up electricity from the stock rails.
I don't spray (never had the hardware) so I paint my rails with a brush. I used a Sharpie brown marker on some but the brown is a bit light.

[Herc Driver]

Thanks David...I covered the points with tape, as well as the switching mechanism just in case. I was hoping to avoid ruining rather pricey turnouts. I hand painted my first layout's track - which was a job in itself - but this new layout would take considerably longer to hand paint so I was hoping to spray a brown/black mixture on. The first attempt at spraying didn't go too badly, I got good color and coverage, but if I was too heavy handed where the track connected it affected the electrical conductivity. I'll need to go back and open each connection and clean the track ends up a bit to make sure the electricity flows. Plus, I found the engines with larger wheel flanges didn't seem to run as well, probably because they were in contact with too much paint and not enough clean rail. The only maker that gave me this problem was Bachmann...the Kato, Atlas, LifeLike, and Athearn diesels ran fine. The Bmanns stopped where two tracks connected just about every time.

[doctorwayne]

I brush-painted all of my track. Spraying puts too much dust into the room (all of the overspray that dries before contact) that can add to electrical problems later. Ideally, sprayed paint should dry (to the touch, at least) shortly after contact, so none should be running into the contact points. If you don't have feeders going to every section of track, then you should have soldered the rails together at the railjoiners, which are not otherwise a reliable conductor of electricity over the long run. Other problems with spraying are prep time, including masking, as mentioned, and shielding any trackside structures or scenery that can't be removed. I use mostly lacquer-based paints, not the best to spray in areas where you can't provide adequate ventilation. Because of the attendant odour of such paints, I used PollyScale water-based paint for track painting. While turnouts do take some time, ordinary track can be brush painted very quickly, with no masking and very easy clean-up. I paint 10' or 15' of track, then wipe the dry-to-the-touch paint from the railtops with a dry rag stretched over my fingertip.

Wayne

[RobertInOntario]

I'm interested in this as I have just been recently weathering the track of my HO layout. I bought a jar of rust coloured paint from an LHS, George's Trains. This paint is made specially for this -- I also bought a similar jar of grey/black paint for painting the ties an authentic colour. I'm quite pleased with the effects of both, as long as I don't get too heavy-handed with the rust paint.

I also bought (from a different LHS) some water-based paint for painting on the effect of diesel/oil spills onto the area between the rails, which you would see at stations and other places along the track. I water this paint down about 50-50 and then brush on. Again, I really like the effect as it looks quite realistic. I keep referring to pics of the prototype to try to get the effects as accurate as I can.

However, I have to brush all of this paint on using a small, fine brush. It's a little tedious so I'm doing this weathering in stages, bit by bit.

David, I like the idea of using a brown "Sharpie" to add rust as well -- I think I'll try that but doesn't this brown colour come off easily, especially when cleaning the track?

Thanks,
Rob

[MasonJar]

A friend recently got Testors paint markers in a set specifically for painting rails - the 3 pack included rust, railroad tie brown, and one other colour (name escapes me right now) to do the track and ties nicely. The marker is easier to use than a paintbrush, and not as high maintenance as an airbrush. The results look good too.

My $0.02

Andrew

[Herc Driver]

Thanks everyone for the input - I sincerely appreciate it.

As an update...I covered all the turnouts with masking tape to protect the points and mechanisms, and painted the rails with brown and black. Right now, there's nothing on the foam board by the tracks...no structures, no anything, so I'm not worrying about the overspray issues yet. I also took the foam board outside to mitigate the spray and it's effects. Overall, it'll be a few more days until I get back home and I really get a chance to look over the rails to see how well I did the job. But I can already tell that an airbrush would be better than spray paint cans...I just couldn't get a fine enough mist from the Tamaya can that I probably could achieve from an airbrush. I think I will hand paint the turnouts though...that seems like the safest idea to make sure I get paint only where it's needed. From all the layouts I've seen posted here...I'm amazed at the quality of the rail weathering, and obviously there are many techniques to achieve some impressive results. I need to take a close look at mine and see how things turned out. The close up test photos I took showed good coverage and a very prototypical look to what I see here in the Carolinas on the Norfolk Southern mainlines. Using a marker pen is an interesting idea...and one I might check into, espicially if I can find one in the proper rusty brown/black color I see locally. I would guess you'd have to use a special type of marker, since it's normally pretty tough to find one that covers evenly on metals.

Thanks again guys - and I'm still looking for some good do's and don't when it comes to rail weathering...The old layout is gone and work has been moving right along on the new layout...and I'd like this one to be a vast improvement over my first layout attempt.

[MasonJar]

The paint markers seem to cover well. I don't know how they get the paint to flow through the tip, but it covers well. They do not leave light and dar areas like you can get even with the Sharpies or other good quality "markers".

Andrew

[Herc Driver]

Thanks for the suggestion about the paint markers - I think I'll try them out on a test track and see what results I get.

Keep the tips coming guys - it really helps to get various opinions on how to weather track.

[baldwinjl]

In my opinion, if paint getting into the rail joiners is causing you trouble, it's just pointing out the fact that counting on the joiners for electrical connectivity is chancy at best. Oxidation, and dirt, would have done the job eventually. Drop more feeders, or solder more joiners (might not work well after they are painted)>

[Herc Driver]

I whole-heartedly agree about adding more feeders...I've gone from a simple, little layout on about 2/3 a flat door to one that is 16 feet long. I found that with the simple plan I've created for this new shelf layout, I still needed three feeders (and will probably need one or two more). As soon as I can, I'll check the overall continuity and see what the added paint has done.

[Russ Bellinis]

You can use a bright boy to clean paint off the top of the rails. As far as paint causing problems with the rail joiners, I would agree with baldwinjl. Rail joiners should only be used for a mechanical connection.

[Herc Driver]

I might have to learn how to solder just to complete this new layout. That is probably the safest and most long-term solution to the conductivity problem. Adding more feeders will be first on my list. I picked up the MRR "DCC Guide" today so that I can wire it for DC for now and upgrade to DCC very soon. I don't know enough about DC wiring vs. DCC wiring to know if there's any large differences or do's and don'ts to watch out for...but hopefully after reading and doing some research on this forum, I'll be able to add the additional feeders in the right places to run DC for now and DCC for later.

[baldwinjl]

Soldering rail joiners is a snap. Feeders are a little harder, but not hard.

As far as feeders to the track, there really isn't a lot of difference between DC and DCC. So don't worry much about that. If you can drive a Herc, you can figure it out!

[doctorwayne]

Herc, from what I've read, DCC-equipped locos are a bit more finicky as far as power requirements are concerned than are their DC counterparts. I run DC and soldered all of my track together, then cut gaps in the rail anywhere I needed to isolate a section of track. I then ran feeders from the main track, through an On/Off switch, to the isolated track area. The entire layout (over 300' of track) is fed from one pair of wires near the power pack.
If you don't want to solder all of the track together,you need to run a pair of feeders to each individual piece of track - if you have a hundred pieces of track and turnouts, that's 200 feeders. You could compromise by soldering sections of track together (say five track sections and/or turnouts each), then just run feeders to each section. Now you're down to 20 sections and only 40 feeders. No matter how you do it, don't rely on the rail joiners to give reliable electrical conductivity, especially over the long term. And that's true whether or not you paint your track.

Wayne