Roads

[ajcooper4]

I’m now starting to add some scenery and soon that will include roads. I’ve used some 400 grade wet & dry for workshop floors and trackside paths - works well and marks up nicely to look ‘impefect’.

What do people use for roads please? Not cobbled, 1960 ish with minimal white markings. Mine is a small branch line and I’ll have a crossing which I intend to model with air drying modelling clay.

Thanks, as always.

[Steve M]

My ‘go to’ method is a mix of fine playpit sand and plaster powder sieved onto PVA which has been brushed onto the baseboard. I then drip dilute PVA onto the mix and smooth it out with a fine artist’s pallet knife.
Finally it gets painted with Woodlands Scenics asphalt road surfacing.
Longwinded, but it works for me.

[Guildman]

A matt emulsion paint in darkish to mid grey such as the tester pots from DIY chain stores is all you need as you cannot see particles in our scales. A few larger stones can be represented with very fine dirt or pepper at the edges (known as the cess) of the lane or in urban gutters, but the main tarmac surface is neither regular, nor black. And don't forget roads all have an element of camber.

Martin

[ajcooper4]

Thanks for the advice. To be honest the camber is something I hadn’t considered. Need to give that some thought.

[Guildman]

If you use a filler for the road's surface, make a shallow arc in the edge of a piece of plastikard and use it as a scraper down the length of the road. It will leave small dips, that's the nature of sticky filler, but fear not. They are your random dips and damage which all roads have. Give them a gentle rounding off with some sandpaper. Suck up the dust with the Hoover and slap on the emulsion dark grey. Remember that the darkish to mid-ish grey becomes a little more tan at the edges where the muck gets left, by lorries and tractors. And the grass at the edge is much less green for the same reasons.

Good luck.
Martin

[brian1951]

Its amazing what you find when digging in boxes you have not seen for a few years, Dapol 4s-000-006 Pot hole and road weathering kit, never knew they did this.

[IanS]

https://www.dapol.co.uk/4s-000-006-pot- ... g-kit-1498