Painting plastic tracks

[Ember]

Paint works pretty well.




But if you want real texture, one of the guys on Slot Forum actually cut his plastic track away leaving only the rails and made the road bed with plasterer's joint compound (dry wall mud) which he carved to shape for various features like cobblestones.

[driva137]

WOW that looks incredible, i know my painting skills are not that good ember.

I was thinking of using one them power tools with a wire wheel to to make wheel ruts and grooves in the track and maybe pot holes if i'm carefull, i don't want to go through the plastic.
I have a lot of classic track to experiment on. The painting, i guess i'll get better the more i practice.

[Ember]

Not sure that there's enough thickness in Scalex track to give you anything more than a rough patch.

[downtowndeco]

Ember, that track looks crazy good. More pics & a very brief tutorial. I thought my skills were OK but after seeing what you've done w/the Scale Sport (same track I use on my Route 66 layout) I see I need to pick up my game. Great job!

[Ember]

I didn't really take any process pictures. It is mostly done with a build up of black washes over the base paints I used for the track. I did the border painting before the road surface and knew I wanted to play with some road damage so painted the 'dirt' colour over the track in a few areas. The cracks are just done with black artist acrylic and a fine brush. Same with the shadow details.

[demether]

[Ember]

A foam roller will give you a sharper texture. A short nap fibre roller will be smoother. Long nap will be be textured with a rounded finish. It depends what sort of finish you're after.

[demether]

I'd like to be as close as possible of the original artin texture. I really like carrera an artin smooth surface.

Thank you for the tips

[Ember]

I used a brush for mine. Soft taklon fibre made for a very fine texture.

But, I think most paints will offer more grip than the bare plastic even without a visibly obvious texture. Oddly, the more glossy the paint the more grip it seems to offer.

[demether]

I'm too lazy to paint mine with a brush. Especially when I think about all the other work I'll have to do with a paint brush on the track support and stand ;)

So if I cannot go for brush, I should go for foam, right ? I will probably buy satin acrylic paint. Mate paint is more expensive I think.

[Hotrodbob]

I used almost 3 cans of Rustolium texture spray paint on my 6 foot by 12 foot 2 lane Carrera track.

[demether]

Thank you. It woulod probably mean that I would need about 5 or 6 cans for my 4lanes 14X6... I will take the roll option ;)

[Ember]

I'd go for a short nap fibre roller, I think. You'll still get texture, but it'll be subtle rather than sharp like a foam roller.

It'd be good if others with track painting experience would chip in.

[dreinecke]

I used a foam 1.5" brush - the cheap kind and thinned latex paint on my Scalextric Sport track. I thinned the paint to about the consistency of milk and just brushed it on. Because it was fairly thin, it got a nice pebbled effect:



Hope it turns out good!

[demether]

thanks !

It gives a nice effect, unfortunatly, on my artin track my purpose is to hide the white stripes, so an opaque relatively thick coat will be needed.

Today I went shopping in a local hardware supplies store, but didn't find any color I liked (too light or too dark grey). Thinking of the cost of a relatively good acrylic paint here, I will go to the "big city" to see if I can find something better.

I bought some black paint for the stands. The track support borders will be painted in "electric" blue, the walls (plastic nascar style walls from Artin) in white, and the track itself in medium grey (or light grey if I cannot find anything good enough).

I'm still thinking of adding extra fences or not, or even plexiglass sheet in corners, or if the walls will be suficient.