This may sound a bit weird, but I use sandpaper.Cut the sandpaper, any grade, you choose how 'rough" the ashpalt is, and pick the grade you like, and glue it down to the base. I like to use
corrugated board as a base for roads, so I get some uneven roadways. You can paint the sand paper any colour you like, weather it with chalks or airbrushing, and you can cut pot holes, imperfections,
whatever. I think I looks quite convincing, and it's cheap.
Mike
Could someone help me by tell me approximate dimensaions in inches for the folowing HO
A) a typical city street (small town)in the era of late 40's
B) County Highway (Heavy Traffic)
C) Country Lane/small road (light 2 way traffic)
Im also designing in a RR overpass over the highway What is the minimum clearance for trucks and cars beneth the bridge?
It's much narrower than prototype, but for me, 1" for each "driving lane" and 3/4" for each "parking" lane seems to look good.
Prototype standards are much wider, generally 15' (almost 2" in HO) for each lane, but that's going to look awful wide (for example, a freeway "right of way" in true HO would be a couple FEET
wide)
Don Dellmann
In he 40s, country lanes would be narrow (8 feet or so) with a city street about 12 foot wide. 10 and 12 foot lanes were common then. Here are actual inches for HO width.
8' = 1 1/8
10' = 1 3/8
12' = 1 5/8
15' = 2 1/16
20' = 2 3/4
25' = 3 7/16
Part of the problem is that the width of streets and roads vary according to where you are and what the local street and hiway departments did. This is why there are no set widths for streets in any
scale. You can calculate what you need according to your area.
Roger Hensley
Modern city freeways have 12' lanes, with 10' auxiliary lanes on each side to let traffic get past any obstructions (accidents, spilled loads, railfans gawking at railroad yard overpasses, what have
you). The earliest national highways (the first pieces of Route 66, for example) were built to 10' lane widths, which quickly changed to standard 11' lanes.
I don't have exact data handy, but in the late 40's you'd probably be looking at 11.5' or 12.0' lanes if you wanted to be to scale; though using a narrower width than that can give your roads a
"longer" feel and help compress the scenery.
Mark Mathu
This may sound strange, but the dimensions of a road on your layout can vary depending on location. Space is always at a premium and selective compression is a way of making better use of
space.
If a road and cars are right on the edge of the layout and in plain sight, they have to be close to true dimension. But if the road is on the back edge of the scene and parallel to the observer you
can reduce the width of the road considerably and it'll still look OK.
You can use this trick to pack in more "real" scenery like trees and grass.
Mike Tennent
Later this week I will be laying down an asphalt parking lot on my HO scale Guildwood Station section. The scenery base is foam.
Any recommendations on how to do this? Should I use Woodland Scenics Smooth It? Should I use hydrocal?
How should I seal the foam for plaster or Smooth It application? Any recommendations on how to evenly apply material?
I don't want to use styrene for the parking lot as it does not have the contours of asphalt. I will be using styrene for the curbs and sidewalks.
This doesn't cover the exact topic you asked about, but will get you started if this way is of intrest to you.
For making blacktop roads the first thing you'll need is sand-strained through a kitchen sieve, use the finer particles for the road and the rest for ground over.
After you have built your scenery base lay cardboard strips cut to the width of the pavement and lay them where the road will go, after the cardboard is in place spray the ground on either side with wet water (1-pint of water mixed with 4-drops of dishwashing detergent).
Take 3" plaster gause (like the stuff they use in hospitals to wrap broken arms and legs to form casts) and cut it into 5" long strips then dip into water (or you can use plaster soaked paper towels cut the same way) and lay them over the cardboard (this may require 2 layers of gauze or towels to hold the road in place).
Then paint the road with the same latex earth colored paint you used for the scenery base.
Then sprinkle on the fine sand particles trying to make the surface as smooth as possible.
Spray this with wet water to moisten the sand before applying the bonding agent with an eye dropper (3-parts white glue 1-part water) over everything.
To paint the road use artists acrylics paints, while the road is drying squeeze out about 2 inches of Titanium white and Mars black and mix with water to get a medium shade of gray with the consistency of white glue (for a newer, smoother road use a thicker mixture that has more black, for an older and rougher road, make it thinner and lighter in color). Brush the mixture on with a 1/2" wide stiff -bristle brush once the base color is down highlight each lane with random tones of lighter and darker gray in the direction of traffic.
After everything is dry then work your ground cover up the the edges of the road and secure the new materals with a bonding agent to secure it and your finished section.
The layout has several dirt roads and and flat, bare-earth areas, but everything I have tried so far for these has turned out with the color either too dark or just too far off, esp. when compared against prototype photos. I'm using Highball Earth #171, Fine Light Brown, which is the closest and lightest-colored product I've found. However when I apply this to the layout it still looks too dull/dark to me, esp. when using the technique of sprinkling it over a wet layer of light tan latex paint. The paint seems to darken the color slightly, and even out of the bag it's already a few shades darker than I would like.
Does anyone know any tricks for getting the color to look lighter? One thing I tried was mixing in a little Durhams Water Putty powder but this seemed to dull out the color too much. I'm concerned that painting/airbrushing the area after it dries might do likewise. Would chalks be useful? Are there any other commercial products that are lighter in color?
I had the same problem using ballast for dirt roads...I painted the area first and sprinkled the ballast on while the paint was still wet using the paint as an adhesive...BUT...the ballast did pick up some of the paint color which I didn't want...I started using Modge Podge (a very thick clear matte medium) instead of paint and that put an end to the color change...but that will only allow you to maintain the original ballast color and it won't lighten it...only way I know of to lighten it is to airbrush it...best to spray the ballasted area before you do the ground cover next to it to avoid getting any overspray where you don't want it... Rod
For modeling dry areas (and 11 months a year, Tehachapi qualifies) I always use thin dustings of sifted dirt as a final step. Nothing looks like dust quite like dust.
You'll need a couple of close, but not quite identical colors--if possible, obtain them from the actual area you're modeling. Failing in that, try to get some clay rich soil from somewhere nearby, or just go to a pottery supply store and buy some "slip clay." If you start with raw soils, sift them through a series of sieves, starting with something like quarter-inch chicken wire (to keep big hunks from riping the finer screens), then mosquito netting under that and a final sieving through unoccupied panty hose.
The stuff that passes thorugh all of these sieves should be a very fine grained material that can be brushed on dry, and fixed in place with matte spray or (in many cases) just by spraying with wet water. I'll generally sart with the darkes dust first, let the water spray carry it into the low spots, and (after that's dry) brush on the lighter dust onto the higher areas and kep that in place with matte spray.
Gardiner