Weathering track and ties

[Anonymous]

I have sort of a problem maybe some of you can help. I am in the process of wheathering my N scale track and ties. I used my badger airbrush with rail brown. I Sprayed both sides of the track , and then went over the top of the rail with modelflex cleaner on a rag to clean up. Everything looks clean, but when I try to run my Loco, it sputters around. I tried a bright boy to help clean more but all it did was strip the paint off the sides when I kept rubbing back and fourth. Anyone have any suggestions???

[Anonymous]

First off.....do you know if the track is the problem? How do your engine wheels look? Might be worth while to go ahead and clean the wheels on your engine just to make sure.

As for the painting on the track? What type of paints are you using? I have been using water base paints and then simply go over the rails with either a bright boy OR rubbing alcohol.

Both methods seem to work pretty well for me.

One other thing that I just thought of. Your solder joints. How do they look? You might verify that your joints are ok.

Craig

[Puckdropper]

If the tops of the rail heads are clean, it may not be good enough. Clean the insides of the rails too. Power is picked up not just from the top, but from the sides.

[Anonymous]

Common problem when you first paint track. Keep cleaning your wheels and track until the problem goes away. Next time put a little vasoline on you finger tip and wipe the tops of the rails before you paint them. Or use a marker masker pen. This makes the paint come off quicker and easier. FRED

[dehusman]

How are you getting power to the rails? Are you using flex track or sectional track?

If you are relying on the rail joiners to carry electricity between the sections of rail, some of the paint my have soaked into the rail joiner and "insulated" the joint so that it is not a reliable conductor.

For reliability you should used flex track as much as possible and drop a power feeder from every (or at least every other) piece of flex track.

[Jetrock]

One problem I ran into when I airbrushed my track was paint getting into the switch contact points--I had to do a bit of scraping. I coated my rails with a light coat of 3-in-1 oil before painting so it came right off the top and I didn't have any continuity problems except where paint got into the switches.