Do you generally repaint plastic buildings?

I kitbashed a number of Placsicville junkbox stations into all kinds of different stations...two story, arrowhead shaped (for junction), and an angled one for crossing,  and painted them all with my road's building colors, aspen yellow and spruce green, but decided they were more S scale than O (vs. the kit built O scale stations I have) and am not using them.  After painting I dullcoated them all.  I kitbash and repaint everything (Menard's etc.) because I want them to be "different".  Plasticville, so common, demands it.

I repaint them. Depending on the material... some I even prime and paint on base coat. What are you trying to achieve and which building are you targeting - has a procedure all of its own...

So which building(s) are we looking at?

This is a Lionel water tower that I used a flat tan primer to cover the green molded in color look, then it was weathered with black acrylic washes...

Yes, usually.  If nothing else, to add 'mortar' to the bricks, or killing the shine with a clear matte coating.  But, in the 1:1 world, there's too much variation of color on buildings to settle for what comes out of an injection molding machine........IMHO, of course.

KD

As far as colors, pay your money and take your choice.  John in Lansing, ILL

I agree with KD - buildings look much better with mortar. I also paint to make the structure more 'unique'. Some manufacturers I find easier to disassemble than others. For instance it is pretty easy to disassemble an MTH building for repaint.

It depends on the molded color of the plastic kit. If the colors are realistic, I finish the building with a flat finish. But there is usually something that needs repainted. Currently I am working on the MTH Yard Tower. The brick color was good, so I just added mortar lines. The roof was a dark grey, which was wrong for clay tile, so I repainted with burnt sienna. The window frames are a good color match to the brick and clay tile, so I will leave them as is, but will repaint the spouting around the roof and downspouts the same color. Everything will get a flat finish and then be weathered.

Here are some Plasticville kits that have been modified and completely redecorated.

Here is the Bachmann coaling tower that has been modified and completely repainted.

Here is an Atlas Rural Station kit that has been modified and completely repainted.

Here is an Atlas tower kit that has been modified and completely repainted.

Depends, but generally plastic kit structures are much improved by painting them. This is a Bachmann tower that I did years ago, for the AGHR layout. Crappy lighting, sorry.

I do but to weather more than change color.

Dick

Really nice work and great ideas here!

Peter

Yes! Any plastic building that I use on my layout gets a complete repaint and weathering even if it is molded in the same color as I am repainting, got to get rid of the plastic sheen and give a good surface for the weathering to stick to.

ncng

Matthew Jones posted:

It depends on the molded color of the plastic kit. If the colors are realistic, I finish the building with a flat finish. But there is usually something that needs repainted. Currently I am working on the MTH Yard Tower. The brick color was good, so I just added mortar lines. The roof was a dark grey, which was wrong for clay tile, so I repainted with burnt sienna. The window frames are a good color match to the brick and clay tile, so I will leave them as is, but will repaint the spouting around the roof and downspouts the same color. Everything will get a flat finish and then be weathered.

 

 

The mortar work on this building is beautiful!

Joe, thanks for the compliment on the mortar work! My "secret" is drywall joint compound or vinyl spackling. Both are easy to work with and because they are water based, I can easily remove mistakes and start over (they can be washed off). When the model is finished, I apply a coat of flat finish to seal the mortar.

Matthew:

Thanks for the info. When you said water based you gave me an idea. I have used lightweight spackling in the past for repairs. what I found is that after opening the container no matter how well I close it the spackle hardens and becomes useless for the next job. The next container I buy I am going to start to mix water into the spackle once opened and see how well this goes. 

Joe

Here is the MTH yard tower ready for the flat finish.

Mortar is pretty easy for me. A water base paint applied and then the surface paint wiped off. I do paint some Plasticville, it has no big value to lose. The newer scale buildings are nice but I don't have room for them. I doubt that i would repaint them.

Yep, I paint everything. I have only a few plastic structures, and only three from kits. One is scratch-built and the rest are made from wood. The RR structures needed to be a specific paint job that the RR I model had all their structures painted in, in the timeframe I model.

But these are the plastic ones:

The water tower in the back is also plastic, but it had to be painted as it was scratch built...

Being a fantasy type builder I pay little attention to real, a genuine attempt trying to stay very close O scale maybe but not exact by any stretch.

So I paint, bash, add led lights , all kinds of fooling around with plastic buildings.

The project also ends up in the garbage can sometimes.

Larry

The point is to have fun, not make it to much like WORK

Larry Sr. posted:

The point is to have fun, not make it to much like WORK

I've never understood derisive comments like this. Why do you think those of us who paint stuff think of it as work or hate doing so? Has it ever occurred to you that we enjoy doing stuff like this?

I don't talk smack about folks who go with out-of-the-box stuff, but I've never understood why the opposite view is quite common...

WOW!

I have no idea what you are talking about??? You need to get out  a little more often.

Good grief the remark was to the poster to just have fun, I personally think you just like to be a smart *** sometimes.

Larry

Larry Sr. posted:

I personally think you just like to be a smart *** sometimes.

And I'm quite sure you like being one most of the time.

I stand by my comment as I often see people in O scale who like their trains being more 'toylike' talking smack about those who don't. I rarely see the opposite being the case, and frankly, I'm tired of that.

Ertl Farm set. Painted.

Mike CT posted:

Ertl Farm set. Painted.

Wow, really good work for everything. Love the scenery, too!

I have repainted all of my MTH houses some the same color some different. It makes them look better when their lit no bleed through. I also do the roofs so the shingles don't look so plasticky.

Unmodified Plasticville is just fine for traditional toy-train and tinplate-type layouts IMHO. Sometimes it's preferable to expediently create filled-in layout spaces and deal with detailing later, if at all.

Some guys make a contest out of "my work is better than yours" and it gets a bit tiresome. My model railroad priorities are to dispatch and operate a variety of fairly long trains over an interesting route, not in creating contest-quality architectural-grade models of buildings. Everyone should spend their time on whichever facets of the hobby are most interesting to them and not get caught up in peer pressure of what they "should" do.

After 20+ years my HO scale layout is finally shaping up with more details and scenery. It wasn't my first priority!

Greetings Everyone,

Well, here I go again and I'll probably get yelled at for it as well, (I'm used to the yelling.....I've been married for 22 years).   I sometime say, "I'm going down to the basement to "work" on my layout".  But I really don't mean "work" in the true sense.  It's just a word normally used to describe the "act" of doing something.  Now, if the wife gives me something to do, that particular task will be considered "work" by me.   The layout, not so much.  My point is simply this.  Let's not get our panties in a bunch on the verbiage used by each of us describing the act of completing any "task" on our layout.   Does anyone remember the song, "I've been workin' the layout"?  I think that's the name of the song?   Oh well, I hear the wife calling  so I guess it's time to head downstairs and "work" on my layout.  Jeez, come on guys, it's a hobby (and a great hobby at that) so let's just have fun.   In the words of a man who was very well known to the Law Enforcement Community many years back, "Can't we all just get along?"

Chief Bob (Retired)

Principally all plastic buildings, which we intend to place on our club layout (http://porvoomodelrailroaders.com/), we disassemble them, re-paint them, do some interior design (by using furnitures and figures) and re-assemble them with a fine touch of fasade detailing and weathering. Putting plastic buildings off-the-shelf directly onto the layout decreases the overall quality.

MTH water tower, painted.

OGR Ameritown buildings, painted.

It was an evolutionary process for me.  I started out just repainting buildings when I didn't like the initial color.  Then I started adding mortar lines to brick.  One day I botched that, and since I was unable to get the mortar color off I painted the brick to start over.  

Mike your farm is incredible.

<q>I stand by my comment as I often see people in O scale who like their trains being more 'toylike' talking smack about those who don't. I rarely see the opposite being the case, </q>

I've seen condescension on all sides, and I've seen those on all sides who can be extremely gracious.  In my experience it is more about the person than the type of model railroader he is.

I always repaint any buildings. The minimum is to add weathering and mortar colour. I will also repaint the stone foundations and the window/door trim. Below I show using styrofoam as a base for a series of backdrop buildings. The building fronts are a mix from Ameritown,  Korber & Atlas.

Yes.

Painted plastic water tower by AGHR "shark" Dave O'Connor. Maintenance of RR structures receives highest priority. Or something

I love that tower, as I don't think I can recall ever seeing someone painting something modeled on a layout before. Great job!

It's great!  But it need a caption . . . "You missed a bit."  

p51 posted:

I love that tower, as I don't think I can recall ever seeing someone painting something modeled on a layout before. Great job!

I agree!! Quite ingenious!!!

I always re-paint plastic model kits.  Don't care for the plastic look.