Building a diorama 2 – more ties

As mentioned in the previous post, I sanded down the ties slightly, and used a brass brush to add some texture to the ties, basically simulating wood grain. Like pretty much everything else, the brass brush is also from Wenz-Modellbau, and can be found here.

 

The stain is also from Wenz-Modellbau (big surprise!), I went with a deep black version, since that’s what Mr. Wenz recommended. The stain comes in powder form, and you mix it with some hot water. Before using it, you need to let it cool down some. The stain smells pretty awful when you mix it, and make sure you have a pot or jar or something to keep the stuff in. 1 package of powdered stain is enough to last a LONG time. Unfortunately, I didn’t have anything to put it in, so I ended up having to throw it away. The stain I used can be found here.

 

The next step is laying down the actual rail profiles. I had already airbrushed the “rippenplatte” (tieplates) as well as the “klemmstücke” (clamps) and the rail profiles themselves a rusty brown. Painting all this on beforehand makes things a lot easier later on. The paint used is a mixture of various Gunze colours, and ready to be airbrushed right out of the bottle. Even better, my airbrush bottle cap was the same size as the bottle of paint, so I could hook it right up. One thing I noticed though, is that I definately need a water filter for my airbrush, as well as a new compressor. Not too happen with a smoking compressor that smells like burning oil … This is the paint I used by the way.

 

 

Not that the tieplates are about 10x5mm, the clamps are about 5mm long. Each tie gets 2 tieplates (1 under each rail), each tieplate gets 2 clamps, and the clamps are fastened with small nails. Needless to say, this is a LOT of work, but the result is well worth the effort. More on this later.