Painting the fascia and valence

[Mike B]

Joe Daddy - Thanks for your comment on my benchwork.  The doors all open to allow storage under the benchwork.  Two hinges on one side plus magnetic catch on the other for each door.  I had to work a little to get them perfectly plumb up and down, otherwise they would not swing properly and would scrap the floor but I worked it out OK by trial and error.  Luckily my 2x4 legs were plumb enough to begin with for me to attempt mounting the doors.  There are four doors in total, all made the same - "beadboard" panels cut to size and framed with 1x3 around the edges.  In addition to the four doors the remainder of the benchwork is made up of bookshelves and display shelves so I didn't have to use any fabric drapes etc. The hidden storage space was the "deal closer" with my wife so I could gain this spare bedroom for my layout! 

Mike B.   

[Chartiers]

Thanks Dave - appreciate the nice comments.  This time around both space and $$ are limited, which necessitated a smaller layout.  Being smaller had the advantage that I can finish it to a good level of detail in a reasonable time.  I enjoy working on the layout as there are always things to do or change.  Your layout looks great and you should be very proud of your work - you earned it.  Jim  

[joe-daddy]

Mike,

I love those cabinets below!  Have you made them so you still have access without major problems?  Looks wonderful!

Joe 

 

Mike B.

 

 

[Dave Vollmer]

I went to Lowes one day to pick a color for the fasica and ran across a color called "Aged Pine" from Valspar.  I went with an eggshell finish rather than flat. The color has worked out well.  Jim

Jim, I visited your website and I gotta say, great layout!  Pennsy on a door...  gotta love it!

I was a fan of your old E&A, but the new one is looking spectacular.

I'll be checking up on that site for updates.  Keep it up!

[Mike B]

After studying many magazine layout photos I chose a dark green color for my fascia.  I'm not sure what the name of the color is, my wife took a magazine photo to Home Depot (or Lowe's?) and they matched the color for her.  I am modeling the Colorado Rockies.  I'm hoping that when I get my trees and other vegatation completed there will be some tie in with my Fascia color.  For my valence I chose a flat white color.

Mike B.

 

[fifedog]

Try this:

Get three 4' strips of scrap fascia. Paint each strip a separate color. Temporarily "tack" a different fascia up and leave it up for a couple days.  The one that looks best to you, go with.

BTW, I went with left-over sheets of white ice paneling...but then again, I model snow...

Interesting. What kind of white ice paneling? 

That's what it's called, Mr Hotspur, "WHITE ICE" panelling.  Bought mine at Home Depot.  I model winter, and "profile" the fascia to contour to my hillsides...blends pretty good, and cleans easy to boot.

[Anonymous]

Black for me!

[Chartiers]

I went to Lowes one day to pick a color for the fasica and ran across a color called "Aged Pine" from Valspar.  I went with an eggshell finish rather than flat. The color has worked out well.  Jim

[shawnee]

I like the museum shadow-box look, but I think it only works if the lighting is set up for it...especially with contained lights in a valence.  I don't have a valence.  In regular overhead basement lighting, I think heavy black quickly overwhelms the scenery, especially if the fascia is deep and the layout is relatively small.

I'm going with an earth tone light brown.

On the second ,level, for a short 2 inch fascia that will line that approach, I'm going with an yellow-ish off white, the overall wall color of my basement.  First, the area won't be "handled" by strangers as much as the base level, and second, I think it will make the short fascia complementary and blend with the overall wall color, thus creating ever more a sense of "separation" between the levels - that they're truly independent scenes.

 

[dale8chevyss]

I like the color of the fascia on the layout in the current MR (that the staff is working on) RED!

[Pruitt]

I'm using a high-gloss tan for my fascias. Lighting valence for the upper deck will probably be gloss black.

I use the gloss because it's easy to clean up.

I use the tan because it's close to the dirt color around most of my locale, and because it tends to diminish the appearance of smudges, dirt, etc.

(Sorry, no picture yet)

[HarryHotspur]

Try this:

Get three 4' strips of scrap fascia. Paint each strip a separate color. Temporarily "tack" a different fascia up and leave it up for a couple days.  The one that looks best to you, go with.

BTW, I went with left-over sheets of white ice paneling...but then again, I model snow...

Interesting. What kind of white ice paneling? 

[spidge]

Wow, an awesome SP layout 4 hours away. Chuck, someday I would like to have a chance to operate your layout.

[spidge]

Spidge - your layout looks awesome, need more pics or do you have a website?

Thanks Chuck, I also look forward to photos of your layout. If you look in my signature the is a button WWW that will link to my photobucket pages. There are many almost duplicate photos and a few recent additions. I added a siding and may change the small town(Victorcille) to support more volume. I also built a small engine service bay and posted photos of it. I just need to install some vents.

[Chuck Geiger]

Spidge - your layout looks awesome, need more pics or do you have a website?

[nbrodar]

I use landscaping fabric - not the plastic stuff, the woven stuff.  It's a nice charcoal gray, and it's inexpensive.   The only down side is I've only found it in 36" widths.   I glued wooden clothespins to the back of the fascia to hold the landscape fabric in place.

Nick

[spidge]

I was looking at painters drop cloths fo skirting. There are some that are 4'x15' and two would work ok for me. Although they don't come in a dark color, just tan.

[modelmaker51]

What also would be interesting is the cost per foot for the various methods & materials, especially skirting materials. (I have a hundred feet of skirting to do)

My layout is all foam, the terrain shapes are mostly finished, track laying, painting, ballasting and testing has been done. At layout's edge, I added a vertical layer of  2" foam around the layout, (covering the benchwork), so I would have a more finshed "facia" (temporarilly) while final scenery was waiting to be done.

The foam has been blended, smoothed and painted, to look like an applied facia and ALL unfinished foam everywhere is painted in appropriate colors for the area, (A layout is a long term project and I got tired of looking all that pink and blue and it really gives a quick & cheap immediate improvement).

I've tried both hunter green and flat black for the facia surface. I"m also trying a couple of areas of facia with the terrain color(s). I am still undecided.

[spidge]

My main reason for the darker color is to contrast what ever the main colors on the scenery are.

[colvinbackshop]

I agree with most all comments thus far...

For the true "museum-shadowbox" look, most definitely go with the flat black!

On the other hand, I prefer an "almost" to that contrast and went with a darker olive drab "Cambridge Green" from the Dutch Boy chips, for both my fascia and the valance.

But in all honesty, the big thing with what ever color chosen, at least in my mind, is that it is a FLAT finish. A flat finish will not pull attention away from your pike with its WOW of sight!

I also strongly believe that this should be the case with a backdrop. Yes, I have seen some REALLY nicely painted backdrops with both landscape and detailed scenes.....But I still feel that a flat, less detailed backdrop does not distract from the diorama. As should a flat, neutral color on fascia and valance.

[spidge]

My facia and vallance are actually unpainted masonite(dark brown), but it is exagerated with the room lights off. I have seen layouts depicting the southwest with black facias and this is what I will eventually do. I do plan to lower the top/vallance so it is less likely you will see the lights when standing in front of the layout.

 

[larak]

Definitely a dark color. I was given a few sheets of 1/4 thick plastic sign board that I used for part of my fascia. As an experiment I painted this twelve foot section GLOSS black. It actually looks good, helps repel crud and childrens' fingerprints a bit better than the flat, and cleans up more easily. Of course now that I like the look, I need another 48 feet of the stuff to finish the experiment. No rush yet though, there are still years to go in building the rest of the layout.

Karl 

 

[Chuck Geiger]

Flat Black:

 

 

[joe-daddy]

Hmmm, I wonder where I got the idea I wanted shadow box?  Mr. Fugate, your DVDs are wonderful!

another Joe,

 Joe Daddy

 

Likewise on my HO Siskiyou Line.

(Click image to enlarge)

I use a dark hunter green for the fascia, black for the valance and skirting. I leave the ceiling white, but the aisles don't have any lighting -- only the layout, so the emphasis is on the layout, and you can see in the above photo.

I like the museum-shadowbox look. I think it's very attractive and it focuses attention on the layout, as it should. 

[fifedog]

Try this:

Get three 4' strips of scrap fascia. Paint each strip a separate color. Temporarily "tack" a different fascia up and leave it up for a couple days.  The one that looks best to you, go with.

BTW, I went with left-over sheets of white ice paneling...but then again, I model snow...

[bogp40]

My club decided to use a green. Of the 60 members, there were various reasons for the choice with blending with our NE scenery and the look with the layout in such a well lighted large space. I imagine that if we modeled Southwestern or desert a tan to brown would have been the pick.

I really like that shadow box / museum look. Nice work.

[cwclark]

I like satin black fascia. The layout looks good with satin black paint fascia because it puts ones focus on the layout and a gallon of black latex paint from Walmart is cheap so that railroad funding is spent on more important stuff  like rolling stock, locomotives, and scenery items.  

[tomikawaTT]

I personally favor unpainted Masonite(r) for my fascia panels, for several reasons:

• My fascia is made up of small panels which will be removed frequently for construction, maintenance and troubleshooting.  I would expect any painted finish to start looking pretty sad in fairly short order.
• I am terminally lazy.
• Solid color painted surfaces will show grubby paw prints a lot more than will unfinished Masonite.

Valence panels, which will only be installed once and then left alone, will look best if flat black.

My , other opinions may differ.

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in Septembeer, 1964)

[nbrodar]

I use a medium to dark green fascia, with charcoal gray/black skirting.

Nick