Wood buildings

[Anonymous]

I recently purchased some wood building kits from Walthers for my HO switching rairoad. This is my first wooden structure. In the instructions it suggested that I use oil based paints for the structure.It stated that waterbased paints could warp the wood. Is this a fact or just a precautionary disclaimer from the manufacturer? It would seem tat the wood would have to be soaked with water to warp it. What have been your experiences with wood buildings?

                         Ken

[Rolo Tomasee]

I use acrylic paints that clean up with water and have had no problems. I scratch build my buildings so my wood may be a lttle different than the kits use.

[dwiemer]

I have heard of these kits warping, and since the wood in these kits is rather thin, it is likely that it would happen with very little wood.  I have not done one of these kits myself, but I would tend to follow MFG intructions.  You may get more responses over at the Model Railroader forum as they are into HO and tend to have more folks who do the wood kits.

dennis

[John Busby]

Hi Pirate

With HO structures this could well be true because of the very thin wood used. I would get an oil based primer and prime both sides of the timber before assembling it even the PVA glue could be enough to warp it because of the small timber sizes.

As you add each piece to the kit make sure it is well clamped in such a way that it is forced to dry straight and do not remove the clamps until it is dry.

firmly base the structure on a base that cannot warp say 1/8" PVC sheet.

 Once that is done and the whole structure is together. then you can paint it as the structure was primed at the begining it should not matter what paint is used after that.

Also try and avoid changes to atmosphere as you build it, you could get part of it together and come back in a few days and find it has twisted been there done that with much larger structure than HO

regards John