Hand laid track ties, Paint or Stain?

Stain.  Easier.  Looks better.  If you do it before gluing, the glue will hold better.  I do mine after, because I sand the tops level.

I have always stained my ties with commercial ebony wood stain.

Joe

Heck, the prototype makers of ties stain their's, too !    (creosote)

I like good old walnut stain - looks quite nice.

Stain - and you can vary the stain as you go to get color variation so everything is not that unnatural uniform single color, too.

STAIN, as all before have advocated. Paint would tend to be monochromatic, and a lot more messy,

Simon

Stain - I hand built all my track switches for O and Std ga, and mated them to Gargraves Phantom. Ripped a gallon 'Zip-Loc' baggie of 'ties' from pine on the table saw with a small jig I made. Soaked 'em all in an elcheapo stain I got from the local hardware store that matched the Gargraves wood ties. They look good.

Stain is easier I've found for me. As to color variation, if your eyeballs are viewing from 66" and the layout is at 46" high attempt to view a railroad from 80' above the ties for color variance reference. Most likely less than you think aside from random newer pieces.

This is how we do this procedure at The Detroit Model Railroad Club

Play time about six minutes.

Hope this helps: Gary

Well for the NON-masochistic track layers, I recommend this method---

Try brown and gray Ritt dyes. Use a 2 or even 5 gallon round bucket.  Dump the ties in, pour your dye solution in and weight down the ties so they are all immersed. I used a metal dish with a brick on top.

The longer the ties soak, the darker they will end up.  So you scoop out the ties at various intervals to vary the shade.   I use a dark brown dye  The last ties to come out should resemble freshly creosoted ties.

Believe ME, this procedure is best done outdoors. Scoop out the ties and lay them out on a screen to dry a few days. Old window screens are excellent for this. Do not pile them up on the screen.  DO NOT HANDLE THEM WITH BARE HANDS until they are completely dry. The lighter colored ties and funky looking ones  will get  a second bath in a smaller batch of gray dye solution. Same thing, pull out at intervals.

It takes a bit of experimentation as to soaking times---to get the results you desire.  Just start out slowly and learn as you go. This method worked out quite well for ME---to turn out big amounts of realistic looking ties in a short time. VERY INEXPENSIVELY.

Yes, this method occurred to me years ago as I was dying a batch of sawdust with green dye.  

-Rusty Rails-

Dang it! I done it again! Attempted ID theft! 

I am SALTY RAILS, NOT "Rusty Rails"!

Well, hell, I'm a new "pup" here and ain't learned my name yet!

-Rus  er ah -SALTY RAILS-    Sheesh!

Salty Rails posted:

Dang it! I done it again! Attempted ID theft! 

I am SALTY RAILS, NOT "Rusty Rails"!

Well, hell, I'm a new "pup" here and ain't learned my name yet!

-Rus  er ah -SALTY RAILS-    Sheesh!

Salty,

Maybe you should check your ID before you sign off.

Simon (I think)

Thought I'd add my efforts.

For a newish tie look on Sugar Pine: 2 applications Varathane "Weathered Wood Accelerator" followed by 1 or 2 coats Watco Danish Oil "Black Walnut."  Number of coats dependent on hold well the ties soak up the first application. For a more weathered branch or spur: 2 coats of the Accelerator followed by 1 or two coats of a mix of Danish Oil and Minwax "Weathered Oak." Mix proportions to taste. I added Black Walnut until the mix was a light cocoa color. 

Under 4000K LED lighting. The photo has some glare on the grayer ties, which are actually a bit more beige.

easy way............ Cheap packet of Rit black dye from the supermarket. Mix it up

in a 5 gallon bucket and dump all your ties in and let them soak for a couple of days.

Mix them  once in awhile. Spread them on newspapers to dry. Remarkably realistic.

and very cheap.

A big thank you to everyone who responded. It seems staining may be the way to do. However, the Rit dye method does seem intriguing. I was pretty sure staining was the, preferred, I guess you'd call it method. But with a lot of attention to Krylon camo paints and growing popularity of acrylics, I thought I'd ask the question on what people are using. Clearly, I'll have to do some experimentation.

John I appreciate your comments about ballasting before laying the rail. I never thought of that.  I have seem some of  N&W Class J's video series. I will have to re-watch them before proceeding.

Gary, thanks for Detroit Railroad modelers club video. Lots a good info there, like I commented to Gary, I never thought of ballasting first. 

I will have to keep an eye out for "weathered wood accelerator", looks like an interesting product.

Again thanks to everyone.

Regarding the Varathane weathered wood accelerator, I got it at Menard's for around $10 a quart. It has the consistency of water and I used about a quarter of the can for 2 applications on 50 feet or so of ties. The rub is it is rather unpredictable, as on some ties you get a spot on faded tan/gray look while other can be a bluish gray with variations in between. That's why I went back and top stained with the weathered oak and black walnut mix to even things out a bit. I'm satisfied with the look that resulted in depicting a rather neglected branch or industrial siding. Micro-Mark has something similar, though I've not tried it, however it's rather more expensive as it's directed at the hobby market. The best thing to remember is experiment on scrap pieces and look at it under the lighting conditions your layout will have. The lighting really does change the look tremendously.  

Two Things:

1. RIT dye is a salt and, even after drying, has been reported to conduct current between the rails.  This is probably why we have not heard of it very often in recent years.

2. On a TV show about real trains, I saw an UP trackman say that uniformity is good.  Ties that are old and weathered pose a potential problem.  Uniform dark brown ties are prototypical, especially for mainlines.

Ed

Stain or dye.

dye is simply the easiest, and looks great. Rit black

My concern with using a water based dye is whether the water will cause the tie to swell making it out-of-scale? Or is that assumption unfounded?

One other question regarding hand laid rail. I've seen in the videos where a jig is used to space the ties. That is all well and good with tangent  (ie straight) track. How about curved tack? Won't the ends of the ties on the inside of the curve have to be spaces closer together than the ends on the outside of the curve? Are there any methods of methodically spacing ties for curves, or do you simply eyeball their placement?

hey Mark, guess I am not sure what you are doing. I made ties on my table saw to match

the ties on o gauge track. I dumped them in a bucket of rit dye. There was no swelling.

Attached them to my 0 gauge track with a hot glue gun so no

conductivity issues. 

Hope this helps

Sorry missed the part about handlaid tracks somehow, anyway, the ties will not swell

in the dye

Mark: regarding setting ties on curves. The curves on my layout are very broad and I don't have very many, but the method I used worked well enough for me.

Draw the line of your easement and curve on the side of the ties you want to work from. Use a small piece of scrap wood cut to the space you want between tie faces ( I used 12" for the main and 15" for spurs). Put the glue down with a putty knife then just place the ties along the drawn line using the scrap as a spacer gauge. Of course the tighter the curve the more pronounced the pie shape will be. Goes quicker than it sounds. You'll naturally get some variations, but the prototype does too. 

I vote for opaque stain or paint.   Wood stains generally enhance grain patterns in wood.  Real ties lack this pattern.  I like a brown colour with highlights coming from dust in my natural ballast/dirt.  

jgtrh62 posted:

Mark, I stained some ties today using a charcoal colored masonry and concrete coloring that I picked up at Menard's. It applied very nicely and I think the color and texture look really good as well.

That looks like an interesting product. Your ties turned out nice and black. Did you lay out your ties first or stain/paint them with the Colorfast prior to laying them out?

Gene D posted:

I vote for opaque stain or paint.   Wood stains generally enhance grain patterns in wood.  Real ties lack this pattern.  I like a brown colour with highlights coming from dust in my natural ballast/dirt.  

Gene, your track looks terrific. After reading these posts, there doesn't seem to be a consensus on any one particular method or product. Yet each seams to yield very convincing results. I guess it all comes down to which method works for you and how you want your track to look. Some experimentation is certainly in order.