Painting the LX251 Floorboards – Tim Delahay

This is just a very short “how I do” a wooden floorboard interior using the LX251-00. This particular piece will go into one the arches at Snow Hill, George Parker’s Bicycle shop, finished photos at the end.

First it’s worth spending a moment to get the orientation correct dependant on which way the supporting joists would be running under your floor, the floor boards should always be at 90deg to the joists.

Ensure all edges are free from tags etc. Note this card is thin but very durable.

Next I gently run a medium grit sanding stick over the boards, we are looking to add some texture, travel with the grain direction on the last few passes.

Wipe over with a clean cloth to remove any surface debris.

I then use my blunt scalpel to run down some of the boards, careful not to cut through, we are looking for a separation and uneven gap look for the boards. You will note the nail holes in this sheet, we can add more and gently score across a couple of boards to show a repair. You can also just clip the corner off a board for more detail.

With this complete I like to use chalk as the first coat, I find chalk helps to keep the weathering random and gives a good dappled finish. I use a liquid chalk pen, but a stick of chalk works just as well. If you’re like me use the pen, allow this to dry for thirty minutes or so.

Take some squared up kitchen roll and again working in the direction of the boards wipe down to the point you can see about 50% of the wood colour.

Rub a little harder on heavy traffic areas such as entrances or behind counters etc. I then use a black or brown wash and again as with all our steps apply in the direction of the boards, we are looking for this to fill between the boards for definition and weather the tops of the boards.once applied across the whole floor, dab off gently with folded kitchen roll, keep moving your hand direction to avoid repeat patterns.

Weight the piece down and leave to dry for couple of hours.

You can use a second wash if you want a particular hue on your floor. An example of this would be if your room sells red gas bottles, you may want some red marks and engrained red paint. As mine is going to be a bicycle shop I added a second coat of black wash. Again dabbing off whilst still wet.

Again allow a couple of hours drying time under a flat weight. My final part is to add a few silver nail heads using a silver gel fine tip pen. You can also look to clean
up the boards “back to new” around your repair patch or use powders to show dirt brought in. If this was a coal office I would imagine it would be filthy. As mine is a bicycle shop off a pavement I guessed it would be more worn away than dirty by the entrance.

A good tip here is to use the welcome mats From Scale model scenery, this will add a nice finishing touch. You can recess them slightly to look like the sunken mats used or if more modern make a black and grey mat by painting a piece of masking tape mat grey and adding a black gloss boarder.
I hope this was of some use. Any questions or comments please do drop them below.

Tim Delahay