What color should I stain my trestle?

[AyTrane]

I was thinking of taking a Walnut stain, and maybe thinning it down a bit. What do you think? Railroad will be set in the area of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in middle California, but I'm flexible as it will be fictional anyway.

 

[CBCNSfan]

Guess it depends on how old you want it to look. New would be a dark brown with black for the Creosote treatment. Old would be light to dark gray some black staining for the creosote. Just my opinion should be more jump in with some better ideas.

I used black, brown and gray, didn't look too bad to me.

Cheers
Willis

 

[FunValleyLine]

Walnut would definitely be new looking with a black wash over it. Grayer for the older look.

 

[AyTrane]

What wash should I use to make it somewhere in between; Gray-Black? I chose a stain with a little lighter brown than the Walnut. It is still a very dark stain, but it kind of reminds me more of a tree bark color rather than the black on Willis layout.

Mine is a deeper shade than this, but this is the color I chose:

It actually came out closer to this:

Or even this:

 

[UP2CSX]

I think I'd try India ink washes at this point. Use about half a paper cup of alcohol and a few drops of India ink. Brush that on, let it dry, and see how it looks. If it's still not black enough, just keep adding coats until it gets to where you want it. Willis's trestle would be about "middle-aged" in terms of color, with some of the black creosote weathering off and showing the timber color underneath. Inda ink washes should give you a similar look.

 

[RexHea]

I used a wash of Poly-Scale railroad tie brown until it was close to the brown I wanted. Then I used a wash of India Ink/alcohol to darken. With new wood the brown as a wash is not too dark and gives you a chance to adjust with extra washes. Try on the bottom of of a bent and see what you like.

 

[UP2CSX]

Rex, you know, with all the ops we did, I never get the chance to look over your layout in detail - it's just too big. Those are some beautiful scenes.

 

[RexHea]

Thank you, Jim. Everyone was so busy, it was hard for us to visit properly and for me to explain it all.
This area took me an entire summer to build. The trestle is scratched built from dowels and wood from the LHS. Carey had showed me how to build a jig for the bents. I used ~800 NBWs (nut/bolt/washer) pins in all of the bracing...I went overboard nuts!