My first ever N scale layout progresses and i am planning out my town. it will have an assortment of shops and buildings along a "Main Street". so i am wondering what material is commonly used for an asphalt road? and also how do you go about raising the shops at sidewalk height. the base of my layout is a 2 inch sheet of foam.
Ok; I'll start - you will find as many methods as there are roads in the world; I've used many... I started out using fine grit sandpaper for roads, painted with various colours and detailed with fine markers and powders. I used them in a city scene, with styrene sidewalks. if you scribe the sidewalk part and run the styrene under the building as a base you get a nice even effect. You can see the texture you get from the sandpaper (and the grungy oil spill which was the result of an accident...LOL) Same technique here; slightly smoother sandpaper. I then started using plaster for roads; as seen here: It's advantage is the ability to create realistic grades easily and create "pot holes", dings and imperfections.... A more time consuming and exacting process; but the surface qualities and the ability to detail it are obvious. I think that the technique you choose is dependant on the amount of road you need; the "area" (city; highway; country road....) and your comfort in dealing with plaster/cement/other wet media.... Hope this helps.
Puddington, thanks for the couple of ideas. Now i have an idea where to start. I really appreciate the pictures. that helped alot. your scenes are great. lots of detail that make it look lifelike. i have one question on using plaster. when you made the railroad crossing, is that plaster in the track covering the ties or a store bought piece of track? i am using Kato Unitrack and wonder how i would make the crossing. thanks again.
I used pieces leftover from a roll of tarpaper for asphalt highways on my East Texas layout-- but I had to put down four or seven coats of paint before the roads stopped looking jet black. So no, I don't recommend tarpaper roads. This layout was built on a homosote base. Many of my downtown buildings had sidewalk sticking out in front as part of the kit, and I used it. Here is a scratchbuild, with a styrene sidewalk found in my junk box, leftover from another kit. No, the sidewalks are not all uniform color or thickness, but "there's a prototype for it." I used styrene for streets, and thicker styrene for sidewalks on my Navy base layout, built on foam.
Woodland Scenics HO scale roadbed makes nice country roads. Just spread a thin layer of glue on it and sprinkle with fine WS ballast, and paint a weathered black....Mike
