Gravel road - Good or Awful?
- Thread starter UP2CSX
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blownoutcylinder
Active Member
The sandpaper idea would work if you are modelling a just recently regraded road---
I recently started redoing some roads on my layout using sandpaper---just watch what grit is being used in regards to your scale.
I recently started redoing some roads on my layout using sandpaper---just watch what grit is being used in regards to your scale.
stang_crazy
Member
I think it looks pretty dang good.
Thanks for the comments, guys. The sandpaper would look good for a normal gravel raod but this is a poorly maintained road that just goes to a church, so it's more dirt than gravel. I have one more small thing I'm going to try and then that's it for this thing. I'll bet I've spent five hours on two feet of road. 
If it not too late to add my $.02
The improvements from the first post to this last one is significant. Your colors and vegetation have toned down.
The technique I use: go out to the driveway and scoop up some dry sugar-sand. Sift it through window screen and run a magnet across it. I spread the dry sand on the roadway and spray with wetwater. Run diluted glue following the traffic flow. Very carefully run a HotWheels car/truck up and down the road several times, making turns where appropriate. Its real easy to over do the tire tracks. After I am satisified with the surface vegetation is added very sparingly - both in the center and along the sides. (some of the pix were taken before I got the tripod)
The improvements from the first post to this last one is significant. Your colors and vegetation have toned down.
The technique I use: go out to the driveway and scoop up some dry sugar-sand. Sift it through window screen and run a magnet across it. I spread the dry sand on the roadway and spray with wetwater. Run diluted glue following the traffic flow. Very carefully run a HotWheels car/truck up and down the road several times, making turns where appropriate. Its real easy to over do the tire tracks. After I am satisified with the surface vegetation is added very sparingly - both in the center and along the sides. (some of the pix were taken before I got the tripod)
railBuilderDhd
Active Member
Jon,
Your roads look nice. Can you tell me what the difference is with sugar-sand from sand? I've never heard of sugar-sand and don't know if it's something by a different name here or whatever. Have you ever thought of using baking soda for the dirt? I've been thinking of that and then use paint to color it. I've wanted to do some test of that to see how it turns out.
Dave
Your roads look nice. Can you tell me what the difference is with sugar-sand from sand? I've never heard of sugar-sand and don't know if it's something by a different name here or whatever. Have you ever thought of using baking soda for the dirt? I've been thinking of that and then use paint to color it. I've wanted to do some test of that to see how it turns out.
Dave
hamltnblue
Active Member
The only thing I think is missing is tire tracks. There's a muddy road with a truck on it and no tracks.
Dave - sugar sand seems to be a native of Florida, maybe other places but we sure have a bunch of it. Its nothing special, just very fine sand and out of the driveway it has a little natural dirt mixed in. If you have to buy fine sand, perhaps mixing in some brown and black Tempera powder. (I use dry Tempera in all my plaster of Paris mix).
Let me know how your baking soda experiment works.
Regards,
Jon
Let me know how your baking soda experiment works.
Regards,
Jon
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I'll have to take a picture of the final product as I forgot about this thread. Wolf, I have no room for tress on the other side of the road since it's at the edge of the layout. Any more trees would also hide the church completely, which in not my goal. HB, I added some muddy tracks in the last version. Jon, those are some nice looking dirt roads you did. No sand up here, just red clay, the look I was going for. I mixed some brick red tempra powder in the hydrocal I used for the road base. In retrospect, I wish I had just used some fine ballast and called it good.
railBuilderDhd
Active Member
Jon,
The use of tempera paint sounds interesting. Have you ever used the dry tempera with the plaster to model cement roads or parking lots? I'm getting ready to do a lot of cement parking areas that I need to get a good cement surface model style for and looking for ideas. In fact, I'm thinking I need to start a thread on the subject.
Dave
Dave
Yes, I use dry Tempera in all the plaster and for ground cover. I'll try to get a couple pix of the concrete road. Plaster of Paris, a touch of brown and a touch of black mixed with wet water and carpenter's glue. I sprinkle brown and yellow on the surface to be grassed then mist with wet water and carefully add grass and other textures after glueing. So far, I've used over a pound of green, black and brown. The other day, I needed some plain old dirt for a graded lot - sugarsand (again ) with black and brown dry Tempera. Spritzed it and got a good looking bank with some erosion.
Regards,
Jon
Added the pix
Jim is correct (next entery) that working plaster for concrete is tough. His styrene looks great.
Yes, I use dry Tempera in all the plaster and for ground cover. I'll try to get a couple pix of the concrete road. Plaster of Paris, a touch of brown and a touch of black mixed with wet water and carpenter's glue. I sprinkle brown and yellow on the surface to be grassed then mist with wet water and carefully add grass and other textures after glueing. So far, I've used over a pound of green, black and brown. The other day, I needed some plain old dirt for a graded lot - sugarsand (again ) with black and brown dry Tempera. Spritzed it and got a good looking bank with some erosion.
Regards,
Jon
Added the pix
Jim is correct (next entery) that working plaster for concrete is tough. His styrene looks great.
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Dave, you might want to consider.020 sheet stryrene for concrete, especially if you are doing lots of parking areas and roads. It's easy to cut to size and glues down fine using latex caulk. Flouquil Aged Concrete paint and some shals for weathering will make it look jsut like concrete. There's nothing wrong with plaster but it's a lot faster to use styrene and you don't have to worry about things like leveling it out and cleaning up the mess afterwards. I used sheet styrene for the roads and parking ares you see in this picture and I think it came out pretty good, especially compared to my crummy dirt and gravel road.
mgsrailway
New Member
One thing that has worked for me is to use fine-grit sandpaper, after everything is dry, and rub the gravel area. I use foam sanding blocks (available at your local hardware store) to take away the too-large look of most commercial ballast/rock products.
As someone else mentioned your finger can do some of the work for you, the results may take longer to achieve. Also, your best results are probably going to come from using a natural rock product, such as Highball or Arizona Minerals, instead of Woodland Scenics since it is comprised of finely crushed walnut shells.
Dave Matheny
As someone else mentioned your finger can do some of the work for you, the results may take longer to achieve. Also, your best results are probably going to come from using a natural rock product, such as Highball or Arizona Minerals, instead of Woodland Scenics since it is comprised of finely crushed walnut shells.
Dave Matheny
gravel roadways
For gravel roadways you don't have to buy anything but Elmer's glue. Stop by a gravel or crushed processing facility and just ask if you can have some of their "fines". This is the dust that drifts down from their conveyors. It is finer than stuff you can buy. If no such facility is near you, plain sand can be sifted through a strainer made from a piece of panty hose material.
BUT --- NEVER USE SAND THAT YOU PICK UP FROM STREETS THAT WAS USED BY THE HIGHWAY DEPTS AFTER A SNOW STORM. THIS WILL CONTAIN MINUTE STEEL PARTICLES SCRAPED FROM THE SNOW PLOWS. You don't want any of these particles anywhere near your layout.
For gravel roadways you don't have to buy anything but Elmer's glue. Stop by a gravel or crushed processing facility and just ask if you can have some of their "fines". This is the dust that drifts down from their conveyors. It is finer than stuff you can buy. If no such facility is near you, plain sand can be sifted through a strainer made from a piece of panty hose material.
BUT --- NEVER USE SAND THAT YOU PICK UP FROM STREETS THAT WAS USED BY THE HIGHWAY DEPTS AFTER A SNOW STORM. THIS WILL CONTAIN MINUTE STEEL PARTICLES SCRAPED FROM THE SNOW PLOWS. You don't want any of these particles anywhere near your layout.
ChevelleSSguy
Member
Flouquil Aged Concrete paint and some shals for weathering will make it look jsut like concrete.
Im not totally up on the lingo. What does shals mean? Also, I really like that red house with the white trim with the blue convertible in the driveway. who makes that?
Having driven, and also flown, over gravel roads here in Texas I have to say that the grass in the middle looks out of place. Only a rural private driveway would look like that here and then only if it were rarely used. One would assume that a church would see more regular traffic that would keep down the grass/weeds. Again here in Texas, the edges of a gravel road would be better defined as those roads are maintained by the counties. A private drive to a church would probably be maintained as a courtesy to the church. Graders pass over them on a regular basis leaving the roadway slightly crowned and with a small berm of gravel along the edge. Lose the vegetation in the middle and better define the edges? I mix white glue and water in a 80/20 mix and paint it on with a brush as wide as I want the road to appear. Sprinkle on sand (I model N Scale). After the glue dries, vacuum off any loose material. Then use a narrow brush to paint on more glue along the edges of the road and sprinkle on more sand. Let dry and vacuum. This should create the berm along the edge.
John
John
John
John
Chris, sorry, my typing is still not improving. It should have been "chalks". Using some light and dark grey chalks after painting the styrene Aged Concrete is the real key to making the road look realistic by adding travel wear to the road. Add some expansion joints, repairs, and things like that manhole cover and sewer grates to complete the look. The red house is one of AHM's "Painted Lady" series, modeled after a street of actual toenhouses in San Francisco. It's been out of production for years but they will occasionally show up on e-bay. They were great kits. I don't know why they were never reissued. Thacar is a '67 Plymouth from Malibu.
John, I pretty much came to the same conclusions with my Mark IV version of the road. I tore out most of the grass in the middle and added some more gravel to the middle and sides. I still made some deeper red mud ruts in the road because that's what these little church roads look like in Alabama after a rain. I've got to get down there and take some pictures of the final product, assuming the family will leave me alone for a few hours.
John, I pretty much came to the same conclusions with my Mark IV version of the road. I tore out most of the grass in the middle and added some more gravel to the middle and sides. I still made some deeper red mud ruts in the road because that's what these little church roads look like in Alabama after a rain. I've got to get down there and take some pictures of the final product, assuming the family will leave me alone for a few hours.
ChevelleSSguy
Member
No big deal Jim. I was hoping shals was some hot new product or technique I had never heard of. Speaking of manhole and sewer grates, where did you find those? I havent seen anyone offering them.
Speaking of manhole and sewer grates, where did you find those? I havent seen anyone offering them.They came from Blair Line (http://blairline.com/miscsce/) and are printed on adhesive backed paper. Just cut them out and stick them on. If you're doing concrete streets, the concrete manholes were chipped and dinged up pretty quickly so the road department would reinforce the lip with asphalt. Use a fine point black market around the manhole to simulate this modification.
