John, To add a little to what Art said. I use Miniwax Jacobean stain, a fairly dark color at full strength, but can be a light brown with a very light coat.
I bought a small rectangular cake pan, pour in the stain and then pour in the ties. I fish them out with a spatula and lay them out on newspaper to dry, not necessarily breaking up the "clumps" of ties. The way the stain penetrates the basswood, the way the ties lay on the newspaper, and the "clumps" bleeding on each other causes many variations in color from a light brown to a very dark brown, almost black. After I lay the ties, I sand them with a "sandpaper boat" that is about 2 or 3 feet long to level them out. The high ones will obviously show more bare wood then the low ones. A final scraping motion with the sander sideways with the ties will give them a more protypical horizontal grain. I then take a paint brush and brush full strength stain over the tops of the leveled ties to recolor,(some more than others), them thus giving even more variations in color. I brush some grayish mix of stains on some sidings and yard tracks to depict a more weathered hue. Obviously there are all kinds of ways to do this. This is the way I colored the last bunch of ties. Billy ----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2007 11:25 AM Subject: {S-Scale List} Brandhing off with the "Ties" topic... While we're discussing cross ties, I'd like to know how some of you have handled COLORING hand-laid ties. Do you STAIN them? Paint them? Some other way? How, and what did you use? I do not want to end up with solid black ties... preferrably the worn, brown look. Any suggestions? John Degnan [EMAIL PROTECTED] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
