Painting Track Borders Aprons by Harry Wise

Border Dressing by Harry Wise

No, I am not talking about a breadcrumb mixture from South of the border, I’m talking about the borders on your plastic sectional track. There is a lot you can do to these to make them more realistic and give a more scale effect, and it does not take a lot of effort.

In most cases, a lot of folks get these borders because simply put, you need them. In order for the car on the outside lane to slide as the one on the inner lane does, you need these borders. And to be honest I think they add a great deal of visual appeal to your circuit.

But some of them do not really look as those that you would see at a real speedway. And Carrera’s “construction yellow” markings just did not fit right into my layout plans. So if you are wanting to re-create a scale layout based upon prototype, or just want to enhance your track to be more realistic for very little cost and effort, a little paint, tape and time will fix you right up.

For a while now, like a lot of folks, I simply painted borders all black. But I knew I could do better than that. In Robert Schleicher's new book Racing and Collecting Slot Cars, he shows several methods of dressing up those borders to simulate the prototype. This motivated me to try the same.

I chose a primer gray spray paint at Wal-Mart (98 cents a can). Some use a tan or beige color, but for a lot of the roads here in my area, its more gray than tan, and I am modeling more of a civilian, generic road course than a specific circuit. So therefore the primer gray was a good match.

As on most roads, the outer edge has a white stripe running down it. There are different methods in creating this effect. One is to use automotive pinstriping to mask the track as mentioned in Mr. Schleicher’s book. I instead opted to use masking tape, and simply judge distance by sight, using the inside edge of the tabs on my Carrera borders as a guide.

First I spray the whole section primer gray. Several coats are used, but mostly on the outside edge where the yellow markings are located. Then using standard gloss white (also at Wal-Mart, 98 cents), I lightly sprayed the inside edge white. After allowing 1 hour for the paint to dry, I masked off over the white. Then simply spray another coat of primer gray over the border section.

About 5 minutes after spraying I removed the masking tape, to reveal a much better looking border.

You can recreate a lot of different styles using this simple technique, and doing this alone adds so much to your layout. For something so simple, the rewards are great. Give it a try on your layout tonight, you will like what you see, and so will others.

If anyone has other ideas on detailing, or just to discuss modeling in general, feel free to drop me a line at wiseone@yhti.net

Harry

divider bar