Chip
Building the Rock Ridge Railroad with the slowest construction crew west of the Pecos.
Well that makes a lot more sence.....every time I say "this time I'm going to do it right", I find out one small detail like painting all the pieces before assembly, I didn't think about painting it before hand.
Has anyone had a problem with movement of the benchwork? I never have, but my longest lasting layout was this last one (6 years of a 1X12 shelf layout).
Dan Stokes
My other car is a tunnel motor
stokesda wrote:If you paint all the surfaces before assembly, will you still get a good bond from glue if you are using glue? Since the glue seeps into the wood and seals it anyway, it seems that painting it after assembly would be OK because the surfaces that are glued together are already sealed by the glue.
I concur that the glue will generally seal the surface as well as a coat of paint.
A furniture maker friend of mine states that nothing seals wood against moisture movement better than shellac. But I've never gotten around to sealing my benchwork either.
From my observations, most of the movement/warping comes in the 1st six months after bringing lumber home. All too often, lumber is not properly dried at the saw mill (they like to store logs wet) and is still fairly wet (high moisture content) when it arrives at the lumber yard. Home Depot and Lowe's (and the like) do a pretty poor job of storing the lumber when it arrives still heavy and wet, so the uneven drying causes it to warp.
If you take lumber home from the yard before it is acclimated to the moisture content in your area, or your home has a significantly different moisture content than the yard, then movement and warping is likely. However, if the lumber has been in use through a year's cycle of weather with no issues, you are not likely to have issues for years to come. The exception would be if your basement suddenly flooded, or air conditioning is turned off for a month during the summer in a humid climate.
If you have had "movement" problems, then painting/shellacing can be done after the fact to reduce future problems. However, you don't want to paint/shellac when the humidity is at it's peak or nadir. Paint significantly slows the rate of moisture migration in/out of wood, but does not stop it.
just my experiences
Fred W
None of my benchwork is painted. It is is a mix of 1x2, 1x3 and 1x4 lumber, with 3/4 inch plywood subroadbed. The layout is in the basement and it is extensive, with the maximum length about 28 feet, although not a continuous run of wood. I run a dehumidifier, but only sometimes. I've had next to no problems with any shift in the benchwork.
Unless the basement gets really damp on a seasonal basis, if you do have to move the layout down there, you'll find that it probably provides a more stable environment, with less potential for shifting, than a second floor room typically does.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
From reading other threads on this subject, I've thought about painting as you've described; an additional reason might just be appearance--as my layout will likely be a multiyear project, seems it would just look better to have the wood in some color (brown is one that's been suggested) rather than looking at a lot of exposed plywood for months or years on end until the scenery/ground cover is completed.
Jim
jsoderq wrote:Actually if you are painting to stabilize the wood, you need to paint all surfaces before assembly. Painting only some surfaces will amke the warpage(if you ever have a problem) worse because of the different expansion of the sealed and raw surfaces.
Not so - furniture makers DO NOT paint/stain/varnish/etc before assembly. It would not hurt to paint/stain, but would probably not make a great deal of difference.
My layout is 2'X4' and 2'X8' sections on a 1X4 frame with 2X2 legs and a plywood top. Most of it has Styrofoam over the plywood. I painted it all, every surface. I did it partly to seal the wood because the layout's in the basement but mostly for looks. I painted the underside white to make it easier to see the wiring and to write on it with a felt marker (a hint I got from this forum). The rest of it is brown. I even painted the top surface brown so that if there's any thin spots in the scenery it will look like dirt. Blue is not a colour one finds beneath one's feet or on riverbanks! I assembled everything with glue and screws before painting (the glue needs to get into the bare wood).
..... Bob
Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here. (Captain Kirk)
I reject your reality and substitute my own. (Adam Savage)
Resistance is not futile--it is voltage divided by current.
Bob:
That's an excellent idea, i.e. painting the underside of the layout white--never thought about that, but makes sense since it would better contrast with wiring, turnout motors, etc. while working underneath.
I only paint the top of the sub-roadbed (plywood) with my earth tone interior latex paint so that it creates a quick scenery base. Much better than looking at all that plywood before the real scenery goes in.
In this image you can see the areas where the plywood sub-roaded has been painted and an area that has not yet been painted. The grey areas are the cork roadbed.
Ryan BoudreauxThe Piedmont Division Modeling The Southern Railway, Norfolk & Western & Norfolk Southern in HO during the merger eraCajun Chef Ryan
I think that the only time painting of benchwork should be considered is if the layout will be in an unstable environment. Areas where large humidity swings, very damp basement etc. As already stated running a dehumidifier during the humid/ rainy periods should solve the problem.
Benchwork will always move, even in arid locations. Foam covered layouts usually pose no trouble for track problems. The best thing to do to ensure trouble free track/ joints or buckling is if you lay the track during the dryest or heat season and know the wood is seasoned your gaps can be tighter. If conditions are humid/ damp or the wood is not fully dried leave proper gaps. Recutting of the gaps may be nec. for extreme conditions. Painting of the benchwork may be in order for those conditions as well. This soldering all the rail joints (excluding turns of coarse) is a recipe for disaster especially if you have some very long sraight runs.
Just my view from many years of working with wood.
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
Paint alone won't truly 'seal' wood. That said, I DID paint my benchwork, but really only to hide it since I didn't install any skirting. I had some flat black paint left by the previous owner of the house so I used that up to paint the benchwork after I assembled it. If i had to actually go buy paint, I probably wouldn't have done it, but since the paitn was free...
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Painting the benchwork "theater black" keeps the eye on the layout. Paint the fascia black as well and you get what is called "the shadowbox effect".
After seeing what happened to wood after exposure to the high heat and non-existent humidity in my railroad room (Mojave Desert garage) I turned to steel - specifically, galvanized steel stud material. Fascia, when I install it, will be unpainted untempered masonite - I like the color and it doesn't show grubby paw-prints like solid black. As for what's in the netherworld, it's mostly steel, foam plastic and plywood in its natural state, supporting unpainted, unweathered, unballasted track. Paint isn't necessary to protect or preserve anything I'm using, so I don't paint anything.
I admit without argument that my benchwork will never be mistaken for furniture. OTOH, it isn't supposed to be furniture. One doesn't go to the theater to admire the curtains or the internal architecture of the auditorium, and I don't want to distract attention from the trains and the landscape they traverse.
Just my . Feel free to disagree.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Aside from glueing up the "L" girder and staggered joints, it is not a good idea nor necessary to glue the crossmenbers or risers. Any changes or modifications to the frame, say for relocating a joist for sw. machines will become very difficult. This doesn't apply to glueing up spline or roadbed.
Wood glue will still give a slight bond on painted surfaces, but that solid penetrating bond will be lost. Same is true for glueing foam to wood/ ply. Liquid nail is better for joints like these.
I would suspect that the rails move more than the benchwork in hot weather. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the majority of wood movement width-wise across the grain? Even long runs shouldn't be a problem. Plywood shouldn't move at all; that's the idea of having the grain of each layer perpendicular to the one beside it, so painting to seal it would have no effect.
Somebody corroborate, please, as it's entirely possible that I don't know what I'm talking about.
Chris