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Benchwork: To Paint Or Not To Paint?
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I'll throw in my 2 cents here, speaking as both a model railroared and a professional carpenter. Wood, being a naturally porous cellular material, will always expand and contract with changes in the ambient humidity. The questions in front of you are really: 1) how much will it change and; 2) does this matter. <br /> <br />1) The amount of expansion and contraction depends on lots of factors. These include: the species of wood, the moisture contect when the structure was first built and the amount of air that is able to circulate around the wood (to name just a few.) <br /> <br />2) And now for the tricky part- does this matter? If you build a new house and the rafters shrink and swell- so what. The amount of change relative to the entire structure is negligable. But if you are building a custom dining room table a gap of even 1/32" looks bad. <br /> <br />As a rule, any field-applied sealer (paint, solid-body stain, wood sealer, etc.) must be applied to all faces of the wood prior to assembly. This is the reason that architects often specify back-primed material. This prevents moisture from entering the un-treated face of the wood. <br /> <br />I model in N-scale, where even a small gap can wreck havoc on the track's operation. I build my bench work using pre-primed, finger-jointed 1x4 pine (finger-jointed stock is made up of small pieces that are machine mated together & glued at the joints. It remains very stable regardless of the relative humidity. It is available from most lumber yards and home centers.) Then I prime all the cuts before assembly and then glue and screw all wood-to-wood joints. To make sure that the track's sub-base stays stable, I next glue extruded foam insulation board onto the framework, as this material is stable- it will neither expand nor contract. My cork roadbed is glued onto the foam and my track is glued onto the cork. When I'm all done I apply a fascia of 1/8" Lauan plywood and paint the face of the fascia. Is this over kill? Perhaps, but I haven't had any problems from the framing woodwork shifting over time. <br /> <br />Considering that your whole layout (at 4' x 8') can be moved around with relative ease, I would probably take it outside and spray all exposed areas of the wood with a primer/sealer (like Kilz or Binz). Do this OUTSIDE where there is plenty of ventillation. Do your lungs a favor and wear a respirator for this task. Then you can spray or brush paint the wood a neutral brown or green color. I guarantee that the whole thing will last longer than it would otherwise. <br /> <br />Good Luck & Have Fun! <br />
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