Kevin, paint is a barrier, a wall, if you will, to UV, not an inhibitor, and as such, it is far superior.
Paint will indicate if it has a UV inhibitor, but put on enough, it can be “sacrificial”, if the paint starts to go, it’s still protecting the ties.
Greg
Greg Elmassian said:
Paint will indicate if it has a UV inhibitor, but put on enough, it can be “sacrificial”, if the paint starts to go, it’s still protecting the ties.
Greg
C’mon Greg, any “UV inhibitor” in the paint is there to protect the paint, not the project.
Steve, yes, but isn’t the end result the same? I am tech, I care about results.
…winking…
Exactly Steve, I guess I did not write clearly. Also, I somehow missed your post right before me, so my post was really unnecessary…
To answer the question, isn’t the end result the same?
Well, are the ties protected either way, yes, I think so.
Do the ties look the same? No, and in my mind you lose some of the detail of the ties, but I don’t think it would bother me.
I just did what I did because I did not paint ties first, at the time Aristo had lifetime warranty.
Greg
Greg, loose some detail, maybe, but only if you glop on the paint. And yea, Aristo ties had a lifetime warranty, the lifetime of the company.
N.B. “glop on the paint” might be needed for some paints, especially if they are cheap or not UV or a spray can and not applied evenly.
I here you on the “lifetime”! 
One thing that hasn’t been addressed is to wash the ties with soap and water and then rinse well to remove any oily releasing agent from the plastic. This will help the paint adhere much better. If you are going to take the time to paint your ties, you might as well go all in.
It doesn’t take much, just some soapy water and a paint brush, clean, preferably, a few swipes over the plastic, hose it off, let the ties dry in the sun for a few hours and then paint.
Bada Bing, Bada Boom! Done.
This is especially true with new track. Also, often the “armorall-type” products may have silicones, which are hard to paint over, so a good cleaning if you change from Armorall to paint is also essential.
Greg
In the end, I decided to paint the ties. The rest of the story can be found here:
http://www.largescalecentral.com/forums/topic/22149/iron-island-rr-take-two/view/page/2
At the risk of raising some eyebrow over a dead thread resurrection, I will, because I think this is a pretty important topic.
Has there been any feed back from AML on this?
Since this thread fizzled it seems like AML has sold out old tie and a new batch is on the market, Was anything done differently with UV protection on this batch?
Yes, I have a personal motivation here since I just bought 300" of these tie strips, and kind of wonder what i just stepped into. I’ll definitely be painting them.
I understand from a dealer, that AML did in fact add more UV protection to their ties…
Ahh, That’s good news Andy. Thanks. makes me feel a lot better, I’ll still be painting for color, but I don’t mind the extra protection either. Glad to know I’m starting with a better base though.