Speckle Spray Paint

[MasonJar]

I saw a can of this stuff in the store the other day - says it comes out looking like rock or stone, but looks kinda "speckled" (in black and white).

Is there any use for this stuff? Does it work well?

Comments?

Andrew

 

[billk]

I question if it would "scale down" okay?

 

[N Gauger]

Works great in G - but it's too expensive -

I use ceramic paint - One "color" is Lava & the other is dark Stone (I think) ...

You just paint then on with a "soft bristle brush". They would look good in HO - I don't know about N. If you can find a ceramic store near you, they usually have a "paint Chart" that you can see how they will look. Good Luck!!!!

 

[ezdays]

I've been curious about that too, but you're right, it is expensive. Home Depot is selling it for around $10-12 a can, and it comes in different colors. I have a can left over from a project I did a few years ago. When I get to that point, I'll try it and let you know how it looks in N scale. If nothing else, it does have a rough texture that could be painted over.

There is one other product that I'm curious about as well. Ceiling acoustic spray. Has anybody used that with any sucess?

Don

 

[N Gauger]

Originally posted by ezdays
I've been curious about that too, but you're right, it is expensive. Home Depot is selling it for around $10-12 a can, and it comes in different colors. I have a can left over from a project I did a few years ago. When I get to that point, I'll try it and let you know how it looks in N scale. If nothing else, it does have a rough texture that could be painted over.

There is one other product that I'm curious about as well. Ceiling acoustic spray. Has anybody used that with any sucess?

Don

Well - I know that, if you spray it on really quick - it works & could be sanded down to look good - But too course for N. Also I think it only works Vertically - like you have to be spraying UP towards the ceiling.

 

[Gary Pfeil]

Has anyone got a tecnique for painting a concrete surface that would look like it has the aggragate (stone) in it? I had considered the speckeled paint mentioned here but tried that a while back, no good. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Gary

 

[billk]

Originally posted by Gary H Pfeil
Has anyone got a tecnique for painting a concrete surface that would look like it has the aggragate (stone) in it? I had considered the speckeled paint mentioned here but tried that a while back, no good. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Gary

Painted sandpaper??

 

[sumpter250]

Has anyone got a tecnique for painting a concrete surface that would look like it has the aggragate (stone) in it?

Gary,
When I read this, I stopped, and thought about how I would go about achieving this effect. I guess I subscribe to the "If you use miniature materials, the same way prototype materials are used, the miniature will look like the prototype' theory of modeling. I guess this means I will have to find a reasonable facimile of aggragate, to add to my reasonable facimile of concrete, and see how it turns out.

"you may be right....I may be crazy.....but it just may be a luuuunatic your lookin' for"
Pete

 

[Gary Pfeil]

Pete, On the small scene which I used for a photo contest entry a while back, the one with the street going under a rr bridge, the street was an asphalt street paved over an older concrete one. I tried using a pepper mell, a very fine one, to apply fine pepper lighly, then sealed it with testors flat coat, applied by spraying in the air and allowing it to fall gently down. This I think can actually work, in my test case I applied to little and I didn't pursue it. However, what I want to paint now is some of those old style Rix guardrails, and the pepper tecnique isn't going to work there. I want to get that yellowish with black speckle look. I'll be looking forward to see what you come up with. Following your lead of using miniature materials, I suppose I should mix plaster with ballast and cast my own guardrails. Not!

Gary

 

[spitfire]

Gary, something that I tried a while back to get that look was the old grade school splatter technique using a toothbrush. I took a colour slightly darker than the sidewalk, and another slightly lighter and splattered away. Then I put a thin wash over top of the whole thing to tone it down a bit.

It worked pretty well, but I ended up painting over the whole thing because I found that this level of detail drew too much attention to itself and away from more important things. I feel the same way about mortar lines.

My thinking was this: if you look really closely at sidewalks you see all kinds of dark spots, spills, discarded chewing gum etc. But when do you normally ever look that closely at the sidewalk? Hyper detailing causes the viewer to notice things they wouldn't normally notice and although close-up it looks real, in the end the overall effect doesn't jibe with normal patterns of seeing. Am I making any sense here?

That's not to say you shouldn't go ahead and detail up your bridge surface, just that you might want to factor in some "atmospheric perspective" and tone it down a bit.

cheers
Val

 

[sumpter250]

Following your lead of using miniature materials, I suppose I should mix plaster with ballast and cast my own guardrails. Not!

Gary,
I didn't know you were talking guard rails, I'd have to agree with "not"

you might want to factor in some "atmospheric perspective"

Val,
I've seen some of the matte paintings used in motion pictures, and there's a surprising lack of fine detail in these paintings. They are a good example of atmospheric perspective, and how effective it is.
Pete

 

[60103]

I have a container of stuff called "Scalecrete", which is supposed to look like concrete when it dries.
It's been around so long that it was nearly set when I opened it last week (I must have had it nearly 10 years), but it rejuvenated a bit with some water.
Don't know its current availability status.

 

[Gary Pfeil]

Hi Val, Yes, you're making sense. The effect I'm looking for would need to be subtle, but its presence, I think, would help to visually isolate the guardrails from the rest of the concrete bridge structure. I want the guardrails to be obviously different than the bridge. Yes, I will be mixing different shades of concrete for each, with the guardrails being a bit darker and yellower, the bridge being lighter and tanner/greyer. The spectrum of color of concrete seems infinate. The splatter effect using a toothbrush is one I had considered, although I had thought of a stiff bristled paintbrush, I think the toothbrush is better. How silly is this: I had thought of it but not tried it because I felt the result would be to "large". I will however try it this weekend, what is the worst that can happen, paint them over?

 

[Gary Pfeil]

Here is a photo of the bridge guardrails I spoke of. I stll haven't tried the speckle effect with paint on a toothbrush, I'm pretty much convinced the result would not be subtle enough. What I did instead was powder up dark grey chalk and "speckled" that on dry using a paint brush with long stiff hairs. Then a coat of dullcoat. It is hard to notice but that's what I was striving for, who can see the aggragate from 50' away, as Val, I think, was suggesting. Both bridges in the photo are nearing completion now.

 

[spitfire]

Excellent!

Wow Gary that looks fantastic! You really got the effect you were looking for - it's there, but subtle. I really like that building in the background too - is it a kitbash?

cheers
Val

 

[sumpter250]

Gary,
Those guard rails look great!! That's not what I had pictured!
The bridge in the foreground looks like it could use "one more nut and bolt casting"
WOW!
Are my eyes playing tricks on me, or are the rails hand spiked to every tie on both sides!!??
Pete

 

[Gary Pfeil]

Val, Pete, Thanks. Val, the building was made from two DPM kits, don't remember which ones. It has no back because it wasn't needed on the layout it was built for. I will be building another structure to put behind it for this layout, I'm leaning towards a yellow brick one for contrast.
Pete, yes I have handspiked four spikes per tie, each spike was filed to reduce its head size by about half, and then shortened so as to not protrude thru the bridge ties. I also cut tie plates from styrene strip for each tie and had to drill holes in them for all the spikes. There are 200 nbw castings on the guard timbers, all that remains now is to build the handrails for the walkway and glue on the bents, and install all the nbw castings on them. The scene is coming along!

Gary

 

[Matt Probst]

Gary: You never cease to amaze me! How long have you been working on this layout? I have a hard time fathoming how anyone can achieve these type of results without dedicating their entire day --24/7---365 to nothing but model railroads! (Like George Sellios must...)

Matt--Hershey, Pa.

 

[Gary Pfeil]

Thanks Matt, I get betwen 5 and 10 hours a week to work on the layout. It was started a little over 5 years ago. Many similar sized layouts have been completed in much less time, and mine has a long way to go. Things like this bridge do suck up time. The decision to spike and make tie plates added about 6 hours. But I'm not in a race and the fun is in the building. The river scene I'm working on is central to both the upper level (JGL) and the Garfield Branch, it is deep so the center portion has to be finished before I can mount that somewhat deilicate trestle in place and then finish the Garfield branches trackwork. I've pretty much deided to concentrate on the Garfield branch at the expense of the JGL main. The branch, at about 30' in length and serving seven good sized industries, is actually a model railroad by itself.

 

[spitfire]

Gary, I'm not sure if you've already posted this elsewhere but I for one would love to see your trackplan.
I really admire the standard of detail you've set -- someday I hope to reach that point too.

cheers
Val