Painting the Peco OO turntable well

Hi
I'd like to paint my Peco turntable well but having never seen one in real life and with photographs being shot from ground level, I'm unsure of how best to finish it.
I suspect the concrete walls stayed reasonably clean, but would the base would be covered in oil/grease/water/ash or kept cleanish, but grubby. The model seems to have some drains in the bottom.
If I used acrylic paint would it get rubbed off by fingers? What about using a spray can for a light dusting of dirt?
I just really don't know where to start and would appreciate a bit of guidance if possible - I've trawled the web looking for an example or image, but not found anything.
Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks Martin

On Wed, 22 Oct 2003 13:14:41 GMT, Martin Livingstone wrote:
=>Hi => =>I'd like to paint my Peco turntable well but having never seen one in real =>life and with photographs being shot from ground level, I'm unsure of how =>best to finish it. => =>I suspect the concrete walls stayed reasonably clean, but would the base =>would be covered in oil/grease/water/ash or kept cleanish, but grubby. The =>model seems to have some drains in the bottom. => =>If I used acrylic paint would it get rubbed off by fingers? What about using =>a spray can for a light dusting of dirt? => =>I just really don't know where to start and would appreciate a bit of =>guidance if possible - I've trawled the web looking for an example or image, =>but not found anything. => =>Any help would be appreciated! => =>Thanks =>Martin => =>
Walls: concrete colour (warm, very light grey - almost a pale tan colour), with streaks and patches of blacks/greys, reds/browns/rusts, light greys/off whites/dusty dirt. There's iron in the concrete, hence the rust, and miscellaneous dirt is deposited and partly washed off by the rain, hence the dirt colours, and concrete can also "bloom", hence the light greys and whites. Oil spatter from the turning motor will tend to deposit a fairly uniform blackish streak near the top edge. There are also cracks in the concrete - look at any concrete wall to get and idea of how concrete cracks. Make these with dark greys, or use a very fine marker pen.
Pit: Start with the concrete colour, then add washes of dark greys and browns, gloss black-brown streaks and patches near the pivot and the rail. The odd patch of gloss black-browns where oil has dripped from the engine through the bridge. The general "grain" of the weathering will be streaked towards the drains, ie, the centre. Here and there between pivot and rail a bit of vegetation (weeds are very tough!) There will also be lighter streaks, showing where rain water has flowed to the drains, and washed away some of the dirt.
Use washes of acrylic paints for the general weathering, and touch it up with thinned oil paints for the glossy (oily, greasy) bits.
Don't forget to paint the bridge. The deck became pretty dirty, too, and towards rthe end of steam, t/t bridges were often quite rusty.
However, I hope someone will direct you to some pictures. Search through books - even b/w photos will give you some ideas, since they will show the streaking patterns. You could post a request for turntable pit pictures on alt.binaries.pictures.rail.
Good luck, and have fun! Warning: weathering structures is addictive.

Thanks Wolf - much appreciated