I loved this article on finishing turnouts, and well, finishing trackwork altogether!  Most of my appreciation is with the addition of the slideshow.  This complements the article very well, and helps the very visual people (like myself) to SEE how it's done and not just read it and try to visualize. 

  This type of article is what helps Model Railroad Hobbyist Online Magazine stand out from printed versions of media in my opinion, since a 40+ photo how-to article isn't done in a newsstand magazine.  Normally it's more like 5 images with a very wordy fill-in commentary.

  Again, thank you for a great article.

Jeremy T

Hi,

Glad you enjoyed the article!  It is one I have been meaning to write for some time and having an outlet like MRH is ideal for a project like this that is best described with images.

The switch stand shown in the images is an NJ International product, specifically a #1914 Lo Ramapo.  It is stock, with no modifications.  I bought a few of these to try on my Bronx Terminal layout as they are a clost match to what was used there.

Cheers!

I liked the article and would very much like to read the missing text on the second page of the article.  I am close to ballasting and weathering some track and will apply the leather dye stain.

BNSF Fan

Joe mentioned off-line that he's going to wait for all the errata to flow in and then upload a fixed version with all the fixes in place instead of doing one every time an error is spotted. So keep reporting them!

This will probably happen after the 11th - Joe and the crew will be very busy at Hartford this next week.

Unfortunately, some text got misplaced in this article. Here's the missing text in context:

Painting turnouts works best using an airbrush. A good quality airbrush (I use a Badger 350 dual action) allows very precise control of the paint flow. It is one of the most valuable tools you can invest in. Having an airbrush, and a way to quickly clean it will improve the quality of your modeling tenfold. I keep a jar of lacquer thinner close by to quickly clean the airbrush between colors and after use. Lacquer thinner is the most effective solvent for cleaning Floquil and other types of solvent based paint.

One word of caution though, don’t use lacquer thinners to thin Floquil paint, it will cause a reaction that will harden the paint in a few months. Use Diosol (a commercial product, also available from Floquil) for thinning. It works great, and won’t harm the paint.

Technique Overview

I always start by giving the trackwork a coat of Floquil Rail Brown. Paint everything. The wood ties, the PC Board ties, the rail, fingers, and whatever else that is in the way gets a base coat of Rail Brown. If I am painting a narrow gauge turnout, or one that I want to look a bit older and bleached, I will use a mid-grey color, but for most mainline trackage I prefer Rail Brown.

After painting, I clean the top of the rails immediately using a scrap piece of wood soaked in a bit of lacquer thinner. One wet and one dry piece works great to quickly remove the paint from the top of the rail. Flat material like wood (a piece of flat cork also works well) allows you to remove only the paint on the rail head, unlike a paper towel which has a nasty habit of wiping paint from the ties and getting caught on everything.

The missing text is bold. We will be releasing an updated edition within the next two weeks that has this and a number of other corrections. This missing text is by far the biggest errata item. All other corrections are typo-level and pretty minor.

Absolutely love this FREE mag. Wish I had found it before last week. Many, many thanks for providing this. (I try clicking on sponsors links so they'll know I have interest in their product)

Joe Fugate wrote above (at the end):

"The missing text is bold. We will be releasing an updated edition within the next two weeks that has this and a number of other corrections. This missing text is by far the biggest errata item. All other corrections are typo-level and pretty minor."

I just noticed a few hours ago that the paragraph was disjointed. Has the "updated edition" been released and, if so, can I access it? Not a real problem, since I chose to repub the article for my own use in WordPerfect. Many kudos to Tim for his excellent explanations and techniques.

P.S. I do N scale - don't have the real estate for anything larger, even though I am an HO fan.

Keep on trackin'