Sidewalks

[ChadMichaels]

For those of you who have purchased and used sidewalks on your layouts, who makes the most realistic ones? Walther's, Small Town USA, Bar Mills or some other brand. Also attach pics of them if you could.

Chad

[kbkchooch]

I've used the Walthers ones in the past, but its too much $$$, especially if you do concrete streets along with curbing. So I just use so .040 styrene for the roads and sidewalks, finished with some Floquil aged concrete and weathering chalks, scribing in cracks and seams where needed.

Sorry, no ready picks of the sidewalk, but you get the idea from the street below. Also if you get .040 sheet styrene, you can cut curves into in, with no "set" radius.i 

[Southwest Chief]

Not exactly sure if these are the most realistic, but for city scenes I like the sidewalks made by Scale Structures (SS Ltd.)  They work especially well with old Magnuson buildings.

They are resin and are easily painted.  I use Floquil or Polly Scale concrete.

SS Ltd. offers two sets.  One with rounded corners (650-8011) and one with straight corners (650-8014).  I use both.   Walthers never seems to have these in stock so I order directly from SS Ltd.

Here's a picture showing SS Ltd. sidewalks on my layout:

If you are looking for parkway sidewalks for a residential scene, Plastruct makes some nice ones (570-91690)  They are 1:100 scale so are a little narrow for true 1:87 HO scale.  But they look nice once painted and given some ground cover grass.  I also like the molded in driveways.

Here's a photo showing the Plastruct parkways:

Here's an under construction photo from a similar angle to the scene above that shows more of the parkway sidewalks:

[MisterBeasley]

I use plain white styrene, cut to size.  I paint it gray, and add the lines with a #2 pencil.

The first two were painted with acrylic craft paint.  The last scene was done with gray spray primer.  The primer is more durable, and takes the pencil lines better.  I use a lighter shade of gray for the sidewalks than for the roads, which provides a good contrast.

I try to make my sidewalks very "busy."  Figures, fences, street lights, signs and hydrants all add to the scene and take the eye off the rather plain sidewalks themselves.

And this new forum software is making it very difficult to post pictures.  Inserting them is some kind of video game.  The first time I posted this, it all looked fine until I hit Post, and then all the pictures disappeared.

[NYandLB_Fan]

I use Evergreen styrene sidewalk sheets #14517,  3/8 x 3/8 for my streets.

http://www.evergreenscalemodels.com/Sheets.htm#Sidewalk

A typical residential sidewalk slab is 4' x 4'.  Commercial areas are wider. You have to do the math to determine which groove spacing is right for your application and scale.

[secondhandmodeler]

I've used Walthers sidewalks for most of my layout.  I only have a few areas with streets so it didn't cost that much.  Where I ran out I just used styrene strips, scribed with the expansion lines.  On my homemade sidewalks I didn't scribe the curb into the sidewalks though.

Here is a picture of the Walthers sidewalks.  The streets are styrene from a for sale sign.

[dknelson]

I like the Walthers sidewalks for my city scenes because I want to capture that rigid regularity - when viewed from scale distances

But for my "neighborhood" sidewalks I wanted to capture the undulating sidewalks i remember from my childhood, where elm tree roots would force up edges of the sidewalks and cause a bone jolting crunch if you were rolling down the sidewalk in a wagon or on a scooter or tricycle.

For that I create squares of thin styrene, paint them, and then mount them on an upside down piece of duct tape which has been stretched to a straight line.  The duct tape allows that undulating look.  For more on the techniques, and  a rather exaggerated photo of the look I try to achieve, see my Frugal Modeler article on this link, page 4 and following

http://www.mwr-nmra.org/region/waybill/waybill20093fall.pdf

Dave Nelson

 

[G Paine]

I like the Smalltown sidewalks. They are grived underneath so they can be split from 2 squares wide to 1 wide. They have a lot of detail like manholes and storm drains, curb cute for alleyway of parking lot entrances, curbs and nice rounded ends for street intersections

http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/699-7000

I have not tried the other ones; I also have been casting sidewalks using Durhams Waler Putty when I make the streets. I use Evergreen scale 6x6 for the curb and the formwork to contain the water putty when it is poured. This is the sidewalk in front of the Shemrock Hotel

[superbe]

i have used sidewalks by Bar Mills. They are made of soft wood and can be used right out of the box or you can give them a light coloring of your choice.. Each square is grooved and easily detached from the adjoining one. Also the curb line is marked as well as cracks in the sidewalk.

 

 

I can't compare them with others as these are the only ones I have used but I would buy them again.

 

Bob

[NittanyLion]

I really like the Walthers ones but I wish they sold them on their own instead of with the streets.