The pic of my mine module was taken at Four County Soiety of Model Engineers layout at the Great Scale Model Train Show at Timonium. So the ceiling is the high ceiling at the Cow Palace. By the way, we will be set up at Timonium this weekend.
Mike;
You do some really fantastic work! There is a balance to it that I rarely see on other work (mine included), and I believe that we-the rest-may take a good look at it with that in mind. One thing that did reach out to me was the ceiling in the background. It appears black, and that may be something to consider when lighting a layout. I am going to consider using black on the overhead of my layout (I will be using a tiered plan, and so that will be an easy task). I am going to use rope lighting, both warm and blue, as it will be fairly easy to do both day and night backgrounds-plus, as it is a resistive load, standard lighting dimmers can be readily applied.
Streamliner
Thank you everyone for your input. I think I will put down a couple of patches of cinder ballast on a junk piece of cork and try the earthtone wash and the brown tempura. I have experience with the black tempura so that sounds promising. And on a side note Grampy I always like seeing pics of your layout. You do some incredible work. I would love to spend the day looking at your layout and picking your brain. Thanks again to all who responded. I will post my results and some pics of my layout. I am about 70% done on a layout designed after the Soybean Processing plant featured in MRR about a year or so ago. Its L shaped the long leg being 14 ft and the short end about 9 ft. in HO of course.
Terry in Florida
Hi Terry: I agree with using earth color to tone down your shiny, black cinders. I had the opposite problem, I wanted to make my yard darker. I used black dry powder tempera paint. I believe brown tempera would work for you.
dehusman I've had luck burning a charcoal briquet to ash and mix it with the cinder ballast. It adds some light flecks, finer material and tones down the cinders.
I've had luck burning a charcoal briquet to ash and mix it with the cinder ballast. It adds some light flecks, finer material and tones down the cinders.
You, Sir, are smarter than the average bear! I think I'll try this in the future!
An old acquaintance of mine used to use a gruel of cigarette ash mixed with isopropyl to do his weathering on his cars and locomotives.
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
As Mike said, the key is to use an earth tone wash (airbrush or regular brush will work) after the cinders have set up well. One thing I found important is to make sure the earth tone used is similar to the earth/soil colors you are using - makes for a better unified look.
Charles
I used a very diluted modelflex earth (probably 1 part paint to 8 parts wet water). I used an air brush to put it on an even did around the bases of some structures. In the pic below the right two tracks the ballast is gray, the others are cinders weathered with earth.
Maybe some Krylon Matte clear spray paint or ModPodge matte medium applied like ballast cement??
Hi Folks. I have a question on weathering cinder ballast, I just ballasted my yard area with Fine Cinders. It looks real good, too good in fact. It looks too new and shiny and black, My question is how do you tone it down a bit and give it a used look. I am using medium gray ballast on the mainline and I toned it down with a couple coats of india ink and alcohol. Of course that would not work on cinders so I am not coming up with any ideas of yet so any help would be greatly appreciated.