Well inspired by the garden railroads article this month about O-Scale bachmann rod iron fencing being used in G-Scale, I have a few tips and tricks of other scales parts to pass along to everyone in this section. Let's start with decals. Needing small decals of heralds for your engines? HO Scale Boxcar decals will always work and mate up. Woodland Scenics makes dry transfer decals that are my personal choice, but Microscale has other good ones as well for non dry transfer. Last christmas I wanted to recreate the christmas tree that is decorated at the Westmont, IL station every year. Instead I found that Life-Like HO Scale Trees (For Non Hobby shops, Hobby Lobby carries them. Hobby Lobby is not a model train shop. They cater to arts and crafts. They are like other retail stores whose definition of model trains is Life-Like or Bachmann) work great to recreate a G-Scale Christmas tree farm. Just paint white on the trees tops, or use that fake snow stuff (not recommended at all) and set them up in a lot in the middle of your town or off a back country road. Z-Scale and TT-Scale Trains. These work great for A G-Scale sized "Garden Railroad." Now your townsfolk can run a garden railroad right in your own garden railroad. I've seen this done so many times before. It's a little secret that runs a long way. I've even seen N-Scale trains being used as a G-Scale "Riding Rail Kit". Rattle Can Spray Paint. This is a double edged sword so listen carefully. To use on plastic shells, do NOT use Krylon Fusion of Plastic. Most of the time the primer inside doesn't set right. Always prime your shells, then use Krylon Fusion for plastic. It works great if you don't have an airbrush. Next, Brass can be spray painted and sealed with Krylon for Metals and Krylon's Satin sealer. I did my Brass Grills that way. Sharpies. EMDTrainman did this one a while back and I still remember it. He used a black permanent marker to color his brass handrails. What a great trick and very interesting to do! Brass Paint Without Baking. This is what I did on my handrails. I painted them with Polylscale paint. I will suggest PollyScale Water Based Acrylic because it grips and grabs well. Hold one end and paint it half way, then set it down gently with the painted end hanging over the edge of something. Then paint the other half. It will take minimum 2 coats. Then seal it with PollyScale Flat Sealer. It really does work wonders. Do you have any tips and tricks? Parts from other scales that can be used in ours? Toss them right here on this thread.
