i've been using small road gravel for scenery on a club layout. Road gravel is dark gray and has a variety of sizes. I'm looking at adding mine waste around a mine.
someone at the club was trying to explain that we tend to use scenery materials that are too large. He was saying how for dirt in a circus he filtered dirt thru cheese cloth to get it fine enough. In some test scenery i made, I used what I thought was fine dirt but thought it looked kinda course. maybe paint would have been appropriate.
i'm thinking that a 1/8" piece of road gravel is like a 10" scale rock and wouldn't be too unrealistic. But i'm wondering if the surrounding stone would be more the size of masonry sand (1/16") or should be as small as salt?
i have similar questions about green shrubbery, grass, tree leaves, ...
can anyone shed some insight?
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
I can't give you exact sizes as I don't have/use any. I use dirt,sand,fines from the driveway,kitty litter, ran thru small tea strainers.
I use what ever looks right, when a truck/car or small person stands in it.If you look around in the real world there are many different sizes for different uses. But they all have some texure, so just paint would not work IMO, A 10in rock might be found in fill along a river or ditch. Half of that is still 5in,I would't want to walk or drive on it. But if it looks right , where your useing it, whynot?
as far as green things; a lot will depend on how far away it is from who's looking at it
just thinking
In general, modelers use slightly larger sizes than true scale to keep some texture. This is particularly true in N scale where absolutely correct size stone would have virtually no texture when viewed from a normal viewing distance.
As for mine waste, the 1/8" size in HO would be appropriate for a waste rock dump outside of a mine shaft. The waste rock would be hauled out as it was blasted and 10" real life size would be common.
Ray
Often size needs to be finer IMO. I've seen all too many gravel roads which if scaled up to full size would probably rattle the teeth out of you to drive on them. They usually look way to coarse to me. I think often, a much finer partical size would look best. I saw a photo recently at TrainOrders showing an MTK covered hopper - some of the photo's showed a gravel road and it looked very realistic. Unfortunately you have to be a member to see the full sized photo but here is a link to the topic. That road in the photo has a very fine grain size but it looks very realistic:
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?3,4092681,4092681#msg-4092681
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
riogrande5761That road in the photo has a very fine grain size but it looks very realistic
Yeah but...
While an excellent model, that photo was taken outdoors in full sunlight where you can see the texture in flat paint. Outdoor photos like that are not at all fair to offer as examples of how a layout could look.
I'm with Ray, the texture of a gravel road is more important than the color. Take the grains down as small as you can go where you can still see the texture, but no further. This will usually be larger than scale - the smaller the pieces of gravel, the more out of scale they need to be to look like gravel instead of paint.
I've seen far too many photos of track with true to scale ballast that looks more like concrete than gravel. The ones with cracks are my favorites.
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carl425 Yeah but... While an excellent model, that photo was taken outdoors in full sunlight where you can see the texture in flat paint. Outdoor photos like that are not at all fair to offer as examples of how a layout could look. I'm with Ray, the texture of a gravel road is more important than the color. Take the grains down as small as you can go where you can still see the texture, but no further. This will usually be larger than scale - the smaller the pieces of gravel, the more out of scale they need to be to look like gravel instead of paint.
Perhaps, but it does demonstrate how much more realistic a finer grain size can be. I have viewed many many pictures of gravel roads which look too coarse visually.
I am a geologist by training (Bachelors and Masters of Science in Geology) with many years experience. Texture and grain size is something am intimately familiar with from university courses, on the job training and years of hands-on field work. I totally agree that texture is very important and when too coarse, it looks visually totally unrealistic to me. Most of the time roads and some other features would be markedely improved by going finer in grain size. Is there too fine? Sure, but most of the time from what I see, modelers tend to err on the "too coarse" end of the spectrum. Thats my two pence worth.
Greg,
In general I go with very fine sizes for things. I model HO. For gravel I would use fine sand or maybe N scale ballast. I make all of my leaves and shrubs as fine as I can. Lumber sizes, pipes grab irons etc. all look better when you err on the small side.
One other thing: in HO and smaller scales - things have to be as straight and as square as possible to look right. I see people making edges of loading docks, roofs etc. with very uneven edges thinking that they are conveying a weathered, beat-up look. When you actually do the math, a 16th” miss-match say in decking boards on the model, scales out to approx. 5” in prototype. Most carpenters would never be that sloppy. When you scale down small imperfections they pretty much disappear in HO scale. Let the weathering and texture tell the story and keep it straight and true.
see stuff at: the Willoughby Line Site
riogrande5761Perhaps, but it does demonstrate how much more realistic a finer grain size can be. I have viewed many many pictures of gravel roads which look too coarse visually.
I think we are on the same page. The net of my opinion is that there must be texture. If you can scale the grains accurately and still see the texture it should be done that way. But if exact scale causes the texture to be lost, cheat a little.
One more tidbit on that picture... I can't say for sure, but since that was a diorama that was produced for the purpose of making a photo, I would not be surprised to learn that the "gravel" in that road is not glued down like we would do on a layout. Diluted white glue or matte medium tends to make small grains look more like mud that gravel.
It's a fine balance.
Yes. I have heard it said that a little exageration in texture is need in small scales to make it visible; some just seem to go a little bit too coarse for my tastes. Rob Spangler's wp8thsub layout is another good example of very good texture application.
I suppose glue complicates things so that may take some experimentation to get it right.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
If you have gravel trails near you, like in the pic below, you can scoop up some of the gray dust and use that. It's much finer than any model ballast, and much cheaper.
http://www.kansascyclist.com/img/news/KatyTrail2007_2_ShadowsAndSunlight.jpg
Steve S