Billy, the next time I visit I think I'll pass on the cake! ha I made the big mistake a few years back. I had a small can of cresote (yes the real stuff). I was getting ready for some kind of open house, so I got the wise idea of adding a bit of the cresote aroma to the layout. I used a couple of Q-tips and spread some on a few ties. The next night I opened the train room and the smell was more than I could have imagined. It took several months before the smell subsided.
What I've done recently is strain my ties after installation. I just glue them down, sand them a bit, stain and lay the rail--and in my case mostly turnouts as I use flex track for most of my layout. If the stain runs down into the homesote fine--your ballast will cover it. I just use a 1 1/2" brush and draw it along the ties then dab the ends a little. If one wants to take things a bit more extreme as to the color differences in ties--many times a siding will be laid all at the same time with the same batch of ties. Thus after some time the weathering of those ties will be the same, probably a light gray. I really well maintained mainline would have nearly all of it's ties pretty freshly cresoted. It's those branchlines that will have a mixture of mostly gray with perhaps two or three shades of darker colors to represent several seasons of tie replacement. The branchline in my hometown in the 60's had perhaps one or two per hundred fresh ties among the gray ones. Bob Werre Billy Click wrote: > 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 > > ore 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] <mailto:Scaler164%40comcast.net> > To: [email protected] <mailto:S-Scale%40yahoogroups.com> > 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] <mailto:Scaler164%40comcast.net> > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > [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/
