I've been googling images but haven't found anything appropriate to what I'm thinking of...
I'd like to have my yard buildings sitting on cobblestone or concrete with expansion lines, something with texture to break up the ballasted, ground covered look and begin to tie it in with the city/urban scene 3' away.
I don't want to have street running pavement with the rails buried as the track is already on ballast/bed. I've looked through many back issues of MR and MRC and haven't found anything. Anyone here have pics of something similar they've done?
Thanks, Jim
Raised on the Erie Lackawanna Mainline- Supt. of the Black River Transfer & Terminal R.R.
So are you looking for ways to model concrete pads? You can make simple molds and pour plaster into them. The mold below is made from waterproof sandpaper, and the walls are Depron foam. Different grits will give you different amounts of texture. I also tried 220 grit which looked good, but 400 was basically smooth.
I like the plaster to be a bit runny. After pouring it, lay a pane of glass over the top of the mold to make it nice and flat.
Steve S
Steve, I'm looking for "the right look" for building "platforms" under the foundations. I'd be happy to use pre-made Plas-truct, etc. Or embossed paper, but it's the visuals to ponder, that I need right now.
This is the center "courtyard" of my tannery.
For this, I bought one sheet of an Evergreen styrene sheet with a 1/2 inch grid. I made a mold with Woodland Scenics latex rubber, and then cast a number of sheets with Hydrocal, which I then cut and assembled. I put a touch of WS plaster coloring into the Hydrocal to tone down the stark white.
This is actually street-running track, but the material could be used for your application, too. It's one of the street patterns from Proto87. The tan color is as it comes from the box, while the gray to the right is after I painted and weathered it:
I first sprayed it with gray primer, and then applied a wash of darker gray acrylic paint. Then, I used coarse sandpaper to lightly go over the surface, stripping the darker paint from some of the raised bricks to give a more mottled appearance.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Steve, thanks for the idea. Sorry I expressed "needing the "visuals" poorly. Just meant installed on the layout versions of pics. That's what happens when typing on the go! I was shocked to see how rude I sounded :-( I'm going to make one test square and see how that looks plopped on the layout. Thanks again.
Mr.B., I really like the looks of the Proto87 street pattern a lot! That would definitely be in the running. If you have another pic of it with buildings adjacent that would be helpful. If not, thanks for the tip and pics. I hadn't even thought about looking at Proto87 materials. I'll go do that.
Jim
Hydrocal castings from cobblestone sheet (master)
DPM brick for sidewalk Dyed hydrocal streets w/ styrene curb and sidewalk
DPM brick for sidewalk
Dyed hydrocal streets w/ styrene curb and sidewalk
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
This is sheet styrene painted a concrete color and weathered with alcohol/India ink wash.
There's some nice-looking cobblestone street at this link:
http://bigbluetrains.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=321&hilit=cobblestone&start=690
And more "under construction" photos on a couple of earlier pages in the same thread.
Wayne
This isn't the best picture of the street. I'll try to get one that concentrates more on the cobbles later on:
If you can get your eyes off the girls and into the gutter where they belong, you can see the same gray cobbles here. The sidewalk is sheet styrene, cut to shape, sprayed with gray primer and scribed with a #2 pencil.
In Vancouver there are lots of streets where the old brick and block streets are still exposed. Some roads have large granite blocks for the road while others have smaller brick sized surfaces. The reason for the different sizes is, the more traction horses needed such as going up a hill or starting a heavily loaded wagon away from a loading dock, the smaller the brick/block. This allowed the horses to lock their hoofs in better. I have seen old photo's where the first fifty feet or so in front of the dock is smaller bricks, turning into larger blocks in an area where the horses should be moving by.
So plan accordingly.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Thank you guys! Lots of great visuals and ideas here. It's helping me to formulate a couple of "scenic maps", meaning a combo of street macadam or concrete with small decorative lawns and cobblestone platforms/areas surrounding the yard industries.
It's been a difficult area to pull off to my satisfaction due to odd ground spaces surrounding these buildings.
A 45 degree crossing and other semi-complex trackage break my available cobblestone areas down to small odd shaped areas so a lot of the prototype and modeling pics I've searched for just hadn't looked right.
The pics you've all posted so far have been very helpful. Keep 'em coming if you've got 'em. I'm heading "over" to your Taking it to the Streets thread now, David B.
This time, I concentrated on the cobblestones.
Thanks very much, Mr. Beasley. So far I like the Proto87 sheets best for what I'm looking for. Has anyone here used the Micro Mark embossed paper cobblestone sheets? Wondered if they look as good in "the real world"/on the layout as in the catalog.
David B. Wow! That's a whole lot more than I'm going for, but a very impressive , craftsman level project! I'll be following that thread in the future.
Thanks again guys, Jim
Concrete; Styrene sheet roughed up with 400grit paper, expansion joints, cracks and distressing by razor knife, 2 parts Floquil concrete & 1 part Floquil aged concrete, india ink and raw umber wash.
Pavement; 320grit wet/dry sandpaper glued to styrene sheet, grey and raw umber wash, pavement powder patches.
regards, Peter
Hi Guys. Thanks for all of the great ideas. I'm going to try each somewhere on the layout.
Mr. Beasley, I ordered sheets of Proto87 cobblestone for the industrial-transition to the city area. I kept coming back to your pics so figured that "must be the one" -time to get back to building somethin'.
I really like the paint job you did on them. If you have the time to take a close up or two (slightly three quarter view to see the height of the cobblestones visually) I'd like to try getting close to your coloring and see if it looks as good in place as in my head :-) If it's not convenient no worries. You've been an awesome help already with resolving my latest "paralysis by analysis" :-) EDIT: Oh! I forgot, if I blow up you pic in the thread I already have a sense of the height. (Senior moment...