well i am back the layout is finished but i need a little tweaking. I need to know the size of ho roadways and color for highways. I have read the plaster stories and roof shingles stories. I need to know the color closest to concrete also.I have used clear taped cereal box insides for a city underlayment but it was covered afterwards completely. I also need to know if roof shingle flat side are the right color ,I need a medium to dark gray.The roads that walthers and others sell are quite expensive and usually not the right color when it comes to the center stripe color and it would be a small fortune to cover all of my areas. so with out massive painting or heavy plaster what do you suggest for realistic highway roads, dan ryan or skyway as a example.
You worry about many things. But a road is a road, and they come in all different colors. New ashpahlt (Ashphalt concrete) is BLACK, wait a few years and it will be gray, a few more years and it will be light gray.
Other concrete (portland cement concrete) can bw white or whitish, but will depend on what agates are used in the concrete. Out here scoria ends up in both varieties of concrete, and lend it a very reddish color.
Then there are things that people think are paved roads but are not, they are simply gravel covered with a tar.
We have an ashphalt road here on our property that we did not like the grade of, and so the contractor came back and applied a chip-seal over it. Now it looks like a gravel road with tar on it, but it is built on two lifts of ashpalt. I think it is a very nice road, but others, well they still object to the grade.
Then there are dirt roads that are tarred every summer. Everybody thinks that they are paved, but really all they do is lay down new tar every summer and then coat that with sand so that you will not track it into your house.
ANY COLOR YOU USE WILL WORK, for you will find it out there somewhere. I tried to match the concrete steps in our courtyard with paint (I was painting the woodwork on the cat house), but in fact if you take ANY COLOR, scan it and analyze it on your computer's photo program, you will see that each pixel is a different color and no one pixel is the color of the sample that you see. It is your eye that makes it look right, and so it will be on your train layout. The eye will make the necessary corrections : It will see a road and say YES, THAT IS A ROAD.
More intersting for most modelers is how wide to make a road. I was looking at road A838 in northern Scotland, and in many places it was only one lane wide. It had "Passing Places" every 500 feet or so. Most country roads are 20-30 feet wide. Most city streets are 30-40 feet wide (parking, and more traffic).
Forty feet wide is as long as an old box car, and is probably too wide to look good on your layout. It will take up far too much space.
Perspective Perspective Perspective. Fudge it down, use compression. A road in the background shouid be in a smaller scale, along with its cars and buildings. This is called Forced Perspective, and it tricks the eye into seeing waht it wants to see instead really seeing things as they are.
Defense Atorrines know all avbout this.
Anyway, ewe now have the LIONS 2c on this. Why don't you join the LION for dinner.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
I use Testors Flat Gull Gray rattle can for my asphalt roads. It matches the color of aged asphalt.
I just watched a good video the other day on making roads. I usually use sheet styrene while the video used a plaster type material however the painting and striping instruction I found to be very helpful. A friend of mine who is a truck driver said that lanes are 12 feet wide. So I go with that since I’ve never actually measured. The width of slot car track seems to be about 24 feet and that looks good to me. That does not include shoulders which vary from road to road or parking spaces. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psgXEVK9pbc
Not all asphalt is black or grey
http://www.istockphoto.com/photo/red-asphalt-roadway-redrock-canyon-utah-backroads-gm467705102-60528500
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
Lone Wolf and Santa Fe I just watched a good video the other day on making roads. I usually use sheet styrene while the video used a plaster type material however the painting and striping instruction I found to be very helpful.
I just watched a good video the other day on making roads. I usually use sheet styrene while the video used a plaster type material however the painting and striping instruction I found to be very helpful.
There are many ways of making roads. Joint compound and craft paint (Apple Barrel is the brand I use) from walmart is one. WS as a road system using foam tape to make the edges. You could also use actual ready mix concrete (its been done on an HO scale layout).
I used Scenic Express Black Tack Track to make the closed road on my club modules. I first put down a layer of joint compound on top of the bare foam to make a smooth surface to work from. I sanded the joint compound smooth, then applied the BTT. I left the backing paper attached and rolled the BTT with a J roller until all the pieces of BTT were firmly smooshed (a technical term). I then removed the backing paper and applied fine ballast to the BTT, rolling it in with the J roller. Once the BTT was saturated with ballast, I sprayed the entire road with 70% Isopropyl alcohol and then applied scenic cement (home made 50/50ish water/elmers white glue mixture. The road done in gray is the BTT/ballast macadam type road. The gravel road heading in the direction of the grain elevator is a mixture of sand and WS ballast products.
Photo:
http://www.mprr.org/module/andrewgrainfeed
No, Im not a Penn Central fan, thats just me messing with my club president (a diehard PRR fan).
DSchmitt Not all asphalt is black or grey http://www.istockphoto.com/photo/red-asphalt-roadway-redrock-canyon-utah-backroads-gm467705102-60528500
Didnt Pennsylvania have green or red asphalt on some roads at some point, I kind of remember something like that from my childhood.
Yes. Pa. Had. And dtill has red asphalt roads. More like a rusty. brown really
Wolfie
A pessimist sees a dark tunnel
An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel
A realist sees a frieght train
An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space
I have been expertenting with 600 grit sand paper as a road textured material. still need to work out wear color variations. I saw somebody here refferred to what is called oil and chip roads. Another one for slightly heavier grit paper.
A road width is 25 feet. Each lane from white line to yellow line is 12 feet with one foot between yellow stripes. 14. Feet on highways.
Find a copy of the mutcd. It is the rule book by which roads are designed and stripped. it is an international book.
As for road color. Aggregates play a big roll in that. First look for pics of roads in the modeled reagion As your coloring start. Then experiment with a few techniques to see what works for your modeled region. You most likely will use more than one to get the variation in road coloration.
Fun useless fact. Sunlight bleaches the asphalt oil. The uv light actually destroys the oil the same way it does fad paint pigment. Also causes the oil to deteriorate causing the road to eventually disintigrate. Although we generally resurface it long before that point. The top 1.5 Inches is called the wearing course which is what we model
Wolfie <= transportation construction field engineer
BMMECNYCDidnt Pennsylvania have green or red asphalt on some roads at some point, I kind of remember something like that from my childhood
Nicknamed "Pinchot roads" for Gov. Pinchot who led an effort to pave a lot of the rural roads. They used red or greenish grey shale chips as the aggregate.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
I have seen reddish brown asphalt on the highway near Carlsbad New Mexico. It is very unique. I’m sure there are a few different techniques for paving roads. On a recent trip I noticed that some freshly paved asphalt was very shiny and the headlights of oncoming traffic caused a lot of glare making it hard to see to drive. I noticed that the freshly repaved streets by my house don’t have that problem. You can definitely tell the difference in old and new asphalt. New asphalt is very dark, close to being pure black. Old asphalt is bleached out from the sun and is a much lighter shade of gray. Plus is it often full of cracks and potholes. On some of the streets near my house the county only paved half of the street because the other half was the city’s responsibility. They made a perfect line right down the center. The difference is like night and day. Freeways in heavy traffic areas are usually concrete instead of asphalt. Wet cement is a medium to dark gray while cement which has dried is lighter. The older the cement gets the lighter shade of gray it gets. Also the gutters and curbs on most streets are concrete as well as areas where water causes excessive damage where it runs across the street causing potholes. In some rural areas the curb is asphalt or there is no curb at all. So to accurately color roads remember that each road might be a slightly different color due to aging. Some times the change is very obvious like at county or state lines where different jurisdictions meet. Also freshly paved roads might not be striped yet and roads in residential areas might not be striped either.
Lone Wolf and Santa FeOn a recent trip I noticed that some freshly paved asphalt was very shiny and the headlights of oncoming traffic caused a lot of glare making it hard to see to drive.
Don't know if this is the raeason:
Around 1980 California tested recycled glass as a cheap substitute for rock in ashpalt. They dropped the idea very quickly because of the blinding glare.
However I find on the net that Glassphalt has been used since the 1970's. Probably the Californa mix was a failed expermintal design.
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Portions oh Highway 395 in the southern California desert were paved with "red" asphalt.
you are more experienced then me and i have read and learned from your subway layout and i hand made my el and subway. i read your reply guys and i thank you for the replies since i want to post pictures eventually and want realism. I am a believer in doing things myself to this point and am using all of my left over scenic materials,lichen grass sand for beaches trees etc this year please keep replying your techniques have evolved and i want to learn from more experienced peolpe then me.
There is a section of I-80 in PA that has that reddish pavemen.
Joe Staten Island West
well i was walking guys and found a garage being re roofed. I picked up about 325 feet of usable shingles for the road and now you know my reasoning 6 feet was about 10 bucks with shipping. i left the shingle outside in the rain sun etc and aged them of course upside down and the backside took a sun beaten color and naturally weathered. the roads look pretty close to about a 6 month old road. I picked up a ho scale ruler and left over paint for the middle lines and they look pretty good. The scale is a little bigger for ho purposes but that is for swap meet trucks tanks etc the size can very. so another question does anybody know of self propelled cars trucks etc close to ho size? animation would be fantastic and realistic with the trains the dan ryan would be fantastic looking
I recently completed a '50s two lane highway on my HO layout, pouring it using a plaster product. I also struggled with the width, markings, and color.
The thing is, highways came in many widths, various markings, and the colors were of endless shades of brown, grey, and black.
So I experimented and concluded with the width, striping, and color that looked right on my layout to my eyes. Trust me, that was what is most important, assuming you are building the layout for yourself.
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
see my note above does anybody know of self propelled cars and trucks? ho scale of course the animation would be excellent for the theme of my layout realism!
mobilman44 I recently completed a '50s two lane highway on my HO layout, pouring it using a plaster product. I also struggled with the width, markings, and color. The thing is, highways came in many widths, various markings, and the colors were of endless shades of brown, grey, and black. So I experimented and concluded with the width, striping, and color that looked right on my layout to my eyes. Trust me, that was what is most important, assuming you are building the layout for yourself.
does anybody have the feedback on those tyco slot cars? I have noticed since i was younger that they incorporated a lot of products to work together in there different lines. I would love the animation everything on my layout is functunal smoke.coke oven blast furnace accesorys etc. why not cars and trucks and also planes for ohare airport.