Constructing roads for an industrial park

Woodland Scenics has a road building system. It has three components; Paving tape (walthers#) 785-1455 for $6.49, Smooth - it 785-1452 for $4.98per quart, and Top Coat 785-1453 for asphalt or 785-1454 for concrete. Each is $4.29 for 4 oz.

I have not used this, so . . . .

They also have a Road system kit for 12.98. # 785 952. It looks like a small quantity of each product as well as the instructions for using it.

I used the Woodland Scenics system mentioned by Mr. Rosenbaum for roads through town - it's a little 'fiddly' but came out OK. I would use it again.

Now all I have to do is find better center stripes (white) than the tape I used... it's coming up.

73 de KT0T Bob Schwartz Modeling Waseca, MN in the '50s

Bob Schwartz wrote: Now all I have to do is find better center stripes (white) than the tape I used... it's coming up.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I use artist's pencils to apply the stripes. Might not work on the WS roads, though.

Bill Bill's Railroad Empire

Try a stencil cut out of card. Use spray paint, or a stencil brush (short, stiff bristles.) I've seen very nice work done using this method, but haven't tried it myself. With a stencil brush it's easy to produce the variation in density that looks right.

HTH

Some folks use .060 or .080 styrene sheet; you could cut up old (or not so old?) political or real estate yard signs or such. Draw the road outline, cut it out, glue it down, paint and weather it.

Also see

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thanks Bill; I'll give them a try in a hidden spot & let you know.

Thank you Wolf! I have seen the painted ones - they do look good. I'd have to use the stencil brush as my air compressor is busted.

Bob

I use sheets of craft foam to make the roads, and gel pens (like they use in scrapbooking to write on dark paper) to do the lines. See pics here:

Select "Photo Album" in the left menu, then "Bend Track SIG". Scroll down to the second section of the thumbnails - there are several pictures of roads and parking lots there.

" snipped-for-privacy@cox.net" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@p10g2000cwp.googlegroups.com:

I did a reasonably good job of paving a raod using drywall compound.

I always use molding plaster or plaster of paris. Makes a great looking street , asphalt or concrete. For asphalt , I just mark where I want the road to be and brush the plaster on with a small brush and then use a putty knife to smooth it. Its so easy to feather the plaster on the edges and you can easily put a small crown in the road as the real ones have. Very seldom do you ever see a perfectly flat and smooth highway. Even a newly poured one would still have a crown.

When doing concrete streets I glue or pin small strips of wood , usually 1/8" x 1/8" or smaller , to create a form along each side of the road.I pour the plaster in and 'screed' it with a credit card or some other similiar straight edge. Just like pouring concrete. Concrete streets also have a crown . A slope of 1/8" per foot is common practice on many roads. If you don't want to 'eyeball' it , you can cut a small curve in the straight edge that you screed it with to get the crown in the center , or lay a wood strip slightly thicker than those along the edge to screed from. You can easily pull it up and fill in while the plaster is still setting.

For a long time I looked at roads on layouts and dioramas and some looked so real real and some did not and the differnce was not readily apparent. I did notice very quickly however , that the perfectly flat ones just don't look as good , in my opinion.

Look at the asphalt highways very closely. Not only is there a crown , but there will also be 'tracks' where the heavier vehicles have run and made a depression in the asphalt. I've actually laid a straightedge over these depressions ( model railroaders are a strange lot) and some have been as deep as 2". I sometimes model these depressions by dragging my finger through the plaster while it is still wet.

Another thing I love about plaster is that it's so easy make cracks , expansion joints and holes in the road. You can force dry it with a heat gun or hair dryer abd sometimes get some really convincing cracks. I have laid a small piece of plastic brick sheet under the plaster and then make some holes here and there and it looks like those streets that have been poured over the brick ones.

I've spent quite a bit of time looking at cracks , holes in the road and what you find lying beside the raod. You will most always find gravels and smale pieces of asphalt and concrete....even a tennis shoe , a shovel or pieces of tires that come off big trucks. Sometimes a groundhog eating things he finds beside the road. Sometimes mailboxes and no house anywher to be seen.

I do some strange things at times. My wife has finally gotten used to me constantly looking at rock cliffs , holes in blacktop roads , pointing out to her how oddlooking that last crack or pothole was , kicking up rocks and gravels and picking up twigs and things everywhere we walk. Not sure if she will ever understand when I come running up to her all excited " Honey , look what I found " and have nothing in my hand but an odd looking rock or twig. One time I told her to look out the back window , then the windshield and see the differnce in the color of the blacktop LOL This is true in some of the southwester states , but , so much for that.

Here is where I would say you need to get some pics of roads and side roads , both concrete and asphalt. Look at them very closely. For years I looked at highways but never really paid attention to what colors are there. I think if you look very closely you'll see colors and shades you never noticed before. Just do your own thing now and if you mess up you can always go over it again.

On concrete I start with a wash of about 65 % percent and 35% light grey. Again , look at some pictures. You will find all the above colors and even some shades of yellow. As far as coloring and lines there are many ways to do it and this really where the rubber meets the road (pun intended)

The only black highway I have ever seen is when the asphalt is being poured and a few hours thereafter , after that it's always varying shades of grey and in some cases almost white in spots. There are some really good articles out there in the magazines and books that go into great detail on the coloring and I would highly recommend Dave Frary's " How to build realistic Scenery". A great book and worth every cent IMO.

Not trying to act like an expert here for I'm certainly not. This is what works for me. For asphalt , I start with a light grey thinned very little because I want to seal the plaster a little so it won't absord the colors that follow. The color of light grey primer works very well and I have used the cheap aerosol cans. Just need to mask everything close by.

I imagine many of you have got bored before you reach this part , but just in case you didn't I'll continue. At this point an airbrush is invaluable. I always use an airbrush now and have for more years than I like to think about ,but I have done it with a small paint brush. If you don't have an airbrush here is where chalks really come in handy. Light grey , dark grey , black , which will be used very little and a couple shades of light tan. Also need some white to help tone down those places where you ended up a little too dark. All these colors come in the sets you can buy at craft stores , Wal Mart and other dept stores.

For the lines I make a mask of light card stock. I use a straight edge and cut a couple slots in it approx 1/32 " for HO and spaced the same. This will be approx a scale 3" with 3" separation .This is close enough. Here it's better to be a little small than large, IMO , especially when you take photos. I'usually cut one with breaks in it and one without. As for the curves it's usually as easy to actually mask rather than cut one to match the curves.

Here I use an airbrush and I thin the paint to the point that it's almost a stain. Again , I'm always looking for a used highway , not a freshly paved one.....unless you want to model a freshly paved and painted one. When I paint the lines I use a little more paint in some areas than in others . I try to get a varigated look so it won't look newly painted...again...unless you're modeling a newly painted. :-) In areas where the center line is crossed often , such as driveways or intersections I paint a little lighter.

I know some people will say this is way too much trouble to do highway. As I said before , this is what works for me and the other methods mentioned here also work. Many times though , all those little details , some be called subliminal I suppose , all added together make a scene look so much better but it's not readily apparent just what the differences are.

I hope I haven't been too boring here and I certainly am not trying to criticize any of the other methods. Each and every one of us have a different way of doing things and different priorities. Mine are in the details.

Ken Day

Thank You Ken! Excellent tutorial -- I needed it.

Thank you very much. I'm glad it could be of help to you.

Ken Day

Yeah, I've used that method. It worked for me very well on a straight roadway section on a highway bridge I modeled. I cut a continuous narrow strip out of the center of a manila folder (I chose it because it was stiff enough to stand up to handling, yet thin) and then used 3/4" masking tape* to mask off stripes along the strip. I sprayed antique white acrylic paint through the mask *lightly* to make the stripes.

FYI: Prototype stripes are typically 4" wide with a 10' stripe / 30' space pattern (15' / 25' pre- 1970s).

Ken Day wrote: [..] Very seldom do you ever see a perfectly flat

All new roads (even gravelled ones) have a crown is designed to make the rainwater run off the highway into the ditches. After trucks (and studded tires) have worn ruts into the asphalt, rainwater accumulating there can cause nasty aquaplaning.

Good clear description of your methods. A keeper.

Not in Canada or USA. Shorter stripes, shorter gaps, about 6ft long with a 6ft gap at a rough guess. (I'm sure somebody with hiway maintenance experience will tell us the exact numbers.)

Ten foot long stripes with ten foot spaces between them.

I should have specified: I was modeling a freeway overpass on my layout. I gave the prototype spacing to compare it against the selective compression used on my model, which used gaps made from 3/4" masking tape (= 5.5 scale feet in HO).

The typical spacings are spelled out in the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices. I'm a civil engineer, and my co-workers who specialize in traffic engineering treat the MUTCD as their "bible."

California's interpretation of the MUTCD is on-line at:

to Detail 11 (p. 3A-3) in the MUTCD 2003 California Supplement... stripes are 12' long, with 36' gaps between them for traffic speeds 45 mph or greater.

I experimented with several materials for paving over track in the street. The three finalists were Durham Water Putty, Smooth-It and Hydrocal. I thought Durham the best and have not been disappointed. There are some pictures at

Plain molding plaster makes pretty good asphalt when colored with Rainbow dry color Lime Proof Black. A good realistic approach is to pave with a washed-ou grey and then apply a patch made using more color in the plaster.

While not very good for trackage, I also use DAP Asphalt Filler and Sealant >I have a small group of industrial buildings in a switching layout. We

"Look at the asphalt highways very closely. Not only is there a crown, but there will also be 'tracks' where the heavier vehicles have run and made a depression in the asphalt. I've actually laid a straightedge over these depressions ( model railroaders are a strange lot) and some have been as deep as 2". I sometimes model these depressions by dragging my finger through the plaster while it is still wet. "

I've seen areas of heavy truck traffic where the ruts in asphalt have been 6-8" deep.

If you have a cement or gravel plant you can have these where they turn off the road. Hitting these are almost as much fun as hitting a deer.

"The only black highway I have ever seen is when the asphalt is being poured and a few hours thereafter , after that it's always varying shades of grey and in some cases almost white in spots."

I'm wondering if the blushing dullcote with alcohol technique wouldn't be good for this?

Eric