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What is your favorite facia color and why?

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Posted by Kyle on Thursday, September 4, 2014 11:49 PM

Steven S

Here ya go.  I used the eyedropper tool to sample the sand color and darkened it for the second one.  The third one is the sand color.

I don't recall whose layout it is.  If anyone recognizes it, let me know. 

 

Steve S

 

For desert scenery, I like the tan color (last photo).  On layouts were the scenery is mostly green, I like a green color.  The reason why is because I feel it blends in with the scenery and therefore makes it seem more realistic, and larger. The ceiling as long as it is a light color is ok.  Unless you model night all the time, the lighter ceiling makes it brighter like the sun is out.

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Posted by bing&kathy on Thursday, September 4, 2014 8:46 PM

To hold it, I hot glue clothespins to the inside bottom lip of the fascia every 10" or so. These can be painful reminders on the noggin if you're not careful, so other ideas about doing that could be helpful.

I too am going to use the weed cloth under my fascia. As I am using steel studs, magnets in the cloth will hold them on and allow them to be removed quickly and easily.

God's Best & Happy Rails to You!

Bing  (RIPRR The Route of the Buzzards)

The future: Dead Rail Society

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Posted by trainnut1250 on Sunday, August 17, 2014 12:22 PM

I haven't used the eggshell.  I went with flat and it scuffs like crazy.  Many of my friends use the eggshell and like it a lot.  They made the suggestion after I was finished painting (of course!!)  Don't know about touch up....

 

Guy

see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site

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Posted by rrebell on Friday, August 8, 2014 11:12 AM

Eggshell is what I was thinking. How do you like the eggshell finish, any problems if you have to do a touchup?????????

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Posted by trainnut1250 on Tuesday, August 5, 2014 5:18 PM

rrebell

The more I think about it, black is the way to go for me and with a cloth backdrop, it will hide the unfinished garage, now if it wasn't all set up for stage lighting (it is almost all track lighting), it might be different.

 

 

Yep,

Back in Black here.  Use the eggshell finish to avoid scuffs.

 

 

 

 

Have fun,

 

 

Guy

see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site

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Posted by rrebell on Tuesday, August 5, 2014 11:55 AM

The more I think about it, black is the way to go for me and with a cloth backdrop, it will hide the unfinished garage, now if it wasn't all set up for stage lighting (it is almost all track lighting), it might be different.

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Posted by Medina1128 on Tuesday, August 5, 2014 7:38 AM

I, too, went with a dark green. The human eye is automatically drawn to lighter colors. This draws the attention the layout, not the fascia.

Fascia

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Posted by rrebell on Friday, August 1, 2014 11:14 AM

Unfortunately I will get one shot at this as my scenery goes over the edge of the masonit, which by the way I put on with a comercial staple gun I had lying around. I will have to be super carefull as it is to make the top edge look good.

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Posted by gfewster on Thursday, July 31, 2014 6:47 PM

It is about that time for me to paint my facia and would like so see some examples and opinions as to why that color was chosen.

The basic color of my scenery (plaster) is a good grade of flat acrylic, color matched at the paint store to Floquil earth.  In some places, particularly on steep slopes, this brown shows through gaps in the green ground foam.  This effect looks good to me.  The layout facia is tempered hardboard/masonite, and is brush painted with the same brown paint.  First the facia is glued (carpenters yellow glue) to the layout framework, clamped, but with no screws or nails, for a uniform surface.  The joints are finished before painting. One caution is that I have seen a wide variation in the surface of tempered hardboard.  The harder and smoother the better.  I have seen some that has the surface texture of a sponge, and needless to say, that does not look good as a facia.  Dark green or black also seem to be reasonable choices, but I have been looking at this brown for about 10 years now and it still looks like the best choice to me. As mentioned, trying different colors is easy and repainting later is not that big a deal.
 
Gordon Fewster
Ontario Soutnern Railway
Hendersonville, NC

[/quote]

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Posted by John Busby on Sunday, July 27, 2014 9:40 AM

Hi all

I use a boring grey colour the idea being that people will look at the layout not the boring grey facia

regards John

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Posted by rrebell on Sunday, July 27, 2014 9:29 AM

Very brave!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Posted by farrellaa on Saturday, July 26, 2014 8:57 PM

this is what I wound up with for my facia. I had some sample paints (HD $2.89 jars) and liked it. I added the grey strip to accomodate some 'obstructions' during construction and liked it as well so now I am putting the narrow band all around. Just looked good to me.

    -Bob

Life is what happens while you are making other plans!

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Posted by Anonymous on Friday, July 25, 2014 8:37 PM

MEC Pine Green, or maybe Pullman green.  Prototype colors and it looks good on our Club Modular layout (NMRA judges thought so too).

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Posted by rrebell on Thursday, July 24, 2014 10:44 PM

Flat would show marks too easy, satin or eggshell is the way to go.

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Posted by Mark R. on Thursday, July 24, 2014 8:02 PM

My facia is masonite as well, and I just gave it two coats of satin black latex with a small roller. After over fifteen years it still looks pretty good. It's constantly being leaned on and has withstood scratches surprisingly well.

I avoided flat black as it easily gets shiny spots from being rubbed on. I have a couple spots where it gets rubbed on quite regularly as people pass. The satin finish has held up much better. Didn't even consider gloss !

Mark.

¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ

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Posted by cacole on Thursday, July 24, 2014 7:56 PM

I use Kilz 2 primer on our club's Masonite fascia, which is then painted with an Oil Based Hunter Green Enamel from Ace Hardware, using a 1 or 2 inch brush.

 

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Posted by LogicRailTech on Thursday, July 24, 2014 7:00 PM
Great discussion on fascia color. If one uses Masonite for the fascia material do you "prep" it in any way? Paint it with a roller or brush it on? Any top coat/sealant or just go with whatever finish (flat, satin, gloss) that your chosen color comes in? This inquiring mind wants to know... :)
Chuck Stancil Logic Rail Technologies http://www.logicrailtech.com
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Posted by alexstan on Tuesday, July 22, 2014 5:39 AM
I personally used black.

Modelling HO Scale with a focus on the West and Midwest USA

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Posted by mlehman on Monday, July 21, 2014 7:23 PM

rrebell

I looked at landscape cloth and all I found so far is very rough stuff, is that all that exists?

The stuff I have is pretty smooth on one side and textured on the other. Really pretty nice and appealing, not rough. I'd say keep shopping, you should be able to find some that looks good.

I also recommend getting the heavy duty stuff. It's only a few bucks more and is generally more robust, hangs better, etc. I use hot glue if it needs folded over, etc, sometimes use a lath or other light piece of wood as a stiffener.

To hold it, I hot glue clothespins to the inside bottom lip of the fascia every 10" or so. These can be painful reminders on the noggin if you're not careful, so other ideas about doing that could be helpful.

Mike Lehman

Urbana, IL

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Posted by Marc_Magnus on Monday, July 21, 2014 4:44 PM

I'm modeling in Nscale and have try several colors for my facia, like dark brown, deep green, earth color.

There is also a valence above my layout, so I put in the darkness the access around the layout and after all these color I come back to the old full black facia color because whith the kind of lighting I use, the scene and the railroad really pop out of the dark access and all the eyes are really catch by the scene out of the darkness.

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Posted by cmrproducts on Sunday, July 13, 2014 6:06 PM

rrebell

I have some of the rough Landscape cloth it is listed as the Heavy Duty type and is much thicker than the standard cloth.

You will have to visit variuos Garden Centers and the Big Box Stores as everyone I have seen has a different type of cloth!

As far as the courseness - It doesn't bother me as - again the BLACK will just dissappear and force the Viewer to look at the Layout.

Of course that is your choice - I used the Heavy Duty (course) as it was 48" wide and I needed cloth wider than the standard 36" which the standard cloth comes in only - or at least that is all I ever found stocked in our local stores!

BOB H - Clarion, PA

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Posted by rrebell on Sunday, July 13, 2014 10:52 AM

I looked at landscape cloth and all I found so far is very rough stuff, is that all that exists?

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Posted by cmrproducts on Sunday, July 13, 2014 8:19 AM

rrebell
 

Some of us have a fairly large layout and can not (in a short time) detail it all to the same degree (I have 180+ feet of mainline and a large and small yard).

rrebell

I have over 4000 feet of track in an area of over 2500 sq ft!

I make NO effort in forcing my Visitors or Crew to look at specific areas!

In fact I have that my crew ask me when I have done such and such on the layout and I have to tell them it was a year ago!

So they did not notice the detail work until much later!

With the Layout being an OPERATIONS! orinetated one - my main focus is the way the trains run NOT Scenery and Details!

I do a lot of small scenic vignettes and the crews see them and comment once in a while

But I do NOT live for the comments on my Scanery as other do!

If the Layout runs and the Crew has had fun - then this is what I want!

I don't continually need praise by forcing viewers on scenes!

BOB H - Clarion, PA

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Posted by dknelson on Saturday, July 12, 2014 5:05 PM

I know I already commented at [tiresome] length on this thread, but just today, while sitting in the smallest room in my house, I happened to re-read the 2014 issue of Great Model Railroads and it illustrates yet another alternative: Gerry Albers's magnificent Virginian Railroad layout uses green indoor-outdoor carpet on his fascia.  It compliments the lush tree cover scenery on his layout.  His floor is covered with color coordinated carpet squares (the brown carpeting is curved and represents the Kanawha River!) and Gerry makes the interesting point that both the floor carpeting AND the fascia carpet help mute sounds in the room. 

One other observation and that is if you use velcro to hold throttles, pencils, uncoupling sticks, drink holders, and clipboards for train orders or switchlists, you may want to consider what colors you can get velcro in so that the end appearance is finished looking and uniform.  That may be yet another reason to consider black for example, since black velcro is readily available.

Dave Nelson

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Posted by rrebell on Saturday, July 12, 2014 12:51 PM

cmrproducts

I have a standard Drop Ceiling in my Layout Room.

I have the Black Landscape cloth under the layout

I have NO Valance at the ceiling and my Fascia is painted a medium Green!

I am doing Western PA Late Summer early Fall so there is a lot of Green Trees!

I figure if I have to force the Visitors to look a specific parts of my layout

I had better be rethinking my Scenery work!

I just could never understand this NEED to force the viewer to look ONLY at certain things on the Layout!

Are YOU afraid of the NOT so proper places to LOOK?

The need to force the viewer away from Scenery NOT done perfect.

If one would do ALL of the Scenery to the same level of completion then there is NO Need to force the views!

In my Office I added another section to my layout and the Display Shelves above the Layout acts similar to a Shadow Box effect.

What is the first thing the Operators do - turn on the main room lights to be able to see to walk around as the rest of the room is so dark!

Kinda defeats the Shadow Box Effect! - Doesn't it?

BOB H - Clarion, PA

 

Some of us have a fairly large layout and can not (in a short time) detail it all to the same degree (I have 180+ feet of mainline and a large and small yard).

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Posted by engineerkyle on Friday, July 11, 2014 5:53 PM

My wall behind my layout is a flat, medium gray. The facia is the same color.

 

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Blue Tombstone Gallery

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Posted by mlehman on Friday, July 11, 2014 2:40 PM

In general, I would say leave the ceiling alone. It works well as either some white or blue variant in most cases, even if you do all-black as fascia and skirts. Why? Unless you're permanently child-size -- that does happen, along with being in a chair permanently, etc, which could be special cases requiring accomodation in some cases -- we look down on our layouts, including most double-decked ones depending on deck height, of course. So having things not on the layout which are not blacked out in our line of vision can be distracting.

Above the layout is mostly in our peripheral vision...and unless it's night, it's some shade of bright up there, virtually anything will do along that line.

Mike Lehman

Urbana, IL

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Posted by cmrproducts on Friday, July 11, 2014 1:31 PM

I have a standard Drop Ceiling in my Layout Room.

I have the Black Landscape cloth under the layout

I have NO Valance at the ceiling and my Fascia is painted a medium Green!

I am doing Western PA Late Summer early Fall so there is a lot of Green Trees!

I figure if I have to force the Visitors to look a specific parts of my layout

I had better be rethinking my Scenery work!

I just could never understand this NEED to force the viewer to look ONLY at certain things on the Layout!

Are YOU afraid of the NOT so proper places to LOOK?

The need to force the viewer away from Scenery NOT done perfect.

If one would do ALL of the Scenery to the same level of completion then there is NO Need to force the views!

In my Office I added another section to my layout and the Display Shelves above the Layout acts similar to a Shadow Box effect.

What is the first thing the Operators do - turn on the main room lights to be able to see to walk around as the rest of the room is so dark!

Kinda defeats the Shadow Box Effect! - Doesn't it?

BOB H - Clarion, PA

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Posted by rrebell on Friday, July 11, 2014 11:38 AM

Will look into that. Next ???????, is painting the ceiling black neccisary to the look do you think.

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