how to paint afx track Options

[Alain]

Good evening all ,

Is there a tutorial somewhere that explain how to paint afx tracks and to avoid painting the tiny rails ?

[Mars]

Hi Alain,

as far as I know, people don´t avoid it. I was told to paint the whole thing, and then use some kind of sandpaper to carefully grind it off from the top of the really tiny rails. Put the paper around a block of wood, lay it flat on the rails and go round the track.

I haven´t tried it yet becaiuse im focused on my 1/32 project, but that´s the way I will do it. Maybe you test it on a single piece of track first.

Cheers!

Markus

[woodcote]

I used a good primer and brushed it on in a couple of thin coats using a foam brush.

As Markus said, remove the paint from the top of the rail using fine sandpaper. If you don't remove it all, you'll get some big problems with the cars not running.

One extra tip. Don't get paint in the slots! It is a complete b@st@rd to remove if you do and the cars don't run. I learned that lesson and the next time I put some string into the slot before I painted and then took it out before the paint dried.

This was my bullring oval with one straight painted and returned to full working order:

[AndySlots]

I have had to paint some track to cover the yellow stripes that come on some pieces.
I used grey plastic primer in aerosol. The finish is pretty good and you could leave it like that. A coat of Black matt aerosol matches in pretty well with the original stuff.
The rails were scraped with a steel rule, and then rubbed with some fine'ish emery paper.

andy

[Julian_Boolean]

One extra tip. Don't get paint in the slots! It is a complete b@st@rd to remove if you do and the cars don't run. I learned that lesson and the next time I put some string into the slot before I painted and then took it out before the paint dried.

That's a good idea, I can confirm that paint in the slot is a git to remove.

[Gareth]

I found a really good way to get paint out of the slots was to invite people round to race on my newly painted track and then make them cups of tea while they sanded, scraped, hacked and struggled digging the paint out of the slots.

When I do another track I will either put string in the slot or fill them up with plasticene.

Alain, you may also find some small dead areas when running on the track after painting. Woodcote and I both had the same issues. We think it is where paint is getting between the two halves of a rail connection and breaking the flow of power round the circuit. One fix is to pour lighter fluid onto the offending track joints and hope it clears the issue.

A longer and more arduous preventative measure would be to solder all of the joints before painting.

Have fun with it. I promise it is worth it when you see the cars going round at long last although my build was so long and frustrating it didn't seem that way at times!!