Years ago I visited an N scale layout and the one thing that I thought looked good and could be practical, his fascia was painted black and he applied them in yellow, a schematic of his layout. When I asked him about it, he replied that it was intended for the ease of locating the track on the layout while operating.
So when I got around to applying my fascia I kept this in mind. When I got it all done, it looked nice, that was until I had run several op sessions and needed to change the track arrangements. It was at this point that I realized that the tracks now did not match what I had painted on the fascia and my efforts had all been done for not.
Realizing this was going to be a big issue with me, I just left it and proceeded to run ops and rework the track as needed. Once I got things where I wanted them that I'd just repaint them (didn't realize that this would be years, not months).
With the OS Omaha Ops weekend coming up soon, it was time to make things look more presentable and I took out my trusty orbital sanded and went to work.
I had painted the colored tracks with one color, then taped them off with 1/4" masking tape and rolled a coat of black over top then removed the tape. It worked slick, but it also left a slight ridge where the tape had been. To compound the issue, when I was done I had sprayed a coat of Krylon semi-gloss acrylic finish as a top coat.
Not to worry though, using an 80 grit pad and a little elbow grease, the ridges were reduced and it scuffed up the paint to give it some tooth.
I had given some thought about using a muted green or earth tone to match the scenery as a lot of modelers have done over the past several years but decided to stick with black. For me, it does a great job of diverting your eyes away from the fascia and skirting and makes the scenery pop.
For reference, here's a shot of the fascia with the stripes.
No comments:
Post a Comment