06-10-2011, 09:47 PM
Thanks Tetters 
Reinhard, Koos, here is the paint technique:
1/4" to 5/16" flat brush:
Take scissors and cut half the bristles out, running lengthwise:
Here's the paint. Cheap water-based craft paint. This is the big bottle that they make. Burnt Umber.
Pick up some full strength paint, then place the brush in the groove of the track, don't have to be all that careful, and with practice, you can place it right where it needs to be. Then lift the brush straight up (blue arrow), or at a 45 degree angle (red arrow). Once you get the feel for it, you can start moving the brush more and more horizontal (green arrow) to spread the paint.
Once you have the technique, a time saver is to get more paint on the brush, then put it on the rail in several spots. This requires less brush loading.
Then take the brush and spread the spots, since I am right-handed, I work from left to right. The ballast in the photo is not glued, because I didn't have any places where I had ballasted track that still needed to be painted.
EDIT:
This does take two coats to get complete coverage of the shine from the metal rails. The colors can also be varied by mixing black or dark gray with the burnt umber to get different shades. I usually do the first coat in the burnt umber, then make a few color variations which go on at random for the second coat.
Reinhard, Koos, here is the paint technique:
1/4" to 5/16" flat brush:
Take scissors and cut half the bristles out, running lengthwise:
Here's the paint. Cheap water-based craft paint. This is the big bottle that they make. Burnt Umber.
Pick up some full strength paint, then place the brush in the groove of the track, don't have to be all that careful, and with practice, you can place it right where it needs to be. Then lift the brush straight up (blue arrow), or at a 45 degree angle (red arrow). Once you get the feel for it, you can start moving the brush more and more horizontal (green arrow) to spread the paint.
Once you have the technique, a time saver is to get more paint on the brush, then put it on the rail in several spots. This requires less brush loading.
Then take the brush and spread the spots, since I am right-handed, I work from left to right. The ballast in the photo is not glued, because I didn't have any places where I had ballasted track that still needed to be painted.
EDIT:
This does take two coats to get complete coverage of the shine from the metal rails. The colors can also be varied by mixing black or dark gray with the burnt umber to get different shades. I usually do the first coat in the burnt umber, then make a few color variations which go on at random for the second coat.