Has anybody used Woodland Scenics Fine Black Cinders as asphalt? Is this a good idea or should I stick with other products.
Hi,
I personally believe that fine cinders will be too coarse for asphalt. I paint my roads, parking lots, etc. with a dusty grey color (asphalt only looks black when new and then later becomes a dark grey). I then use a wash of alcohol, India Ink and some ground black chalk to paint over the grey paint, giving it the irregular and dull look of asphalt. My wash consists of a pint of 70% Isopropyl alcohol, 8 drops of India ink, and about a teaspoon of ground black chalk…the kind I use for weathering.
Hope this helps.
Mondo
Three Brothers makes a sheet of material that is pretty close to asphalt – also good for tarred roofs. I think the main thing is, if you were standing on an asphalt road and it suddenly became 1/87th or 1/160th full size – it would look pretty smooth, not rough. We see the roughness but those little cracks would almost disappear in scale size. That is why most model train ballast looks too big, too. Pick up a piece of ballast and compare it to the size of your hand – now look at the hand on an accurately scaled model figure and realize how tiny ballast should be. That is why the cinders would not make a realistic asphalt.
Dave Nelson
Use styrene or hydrocal. It is amazing what you can produce once you paint it. I agree, the cinders will be too coarse to look like asphalt.
Woodland Scenics Black Cinders?
I’ll take a look at this when I vist my LHS. As mentioned above, most asphalt roads turn gray.
i used them to make dark gravel roads.They really didn’t look like asphalt though.I used the finest dark grey ones they made.
For my HO scale roads, I cut sheet styrene to the contour of the road, spray paint it reefer gray, then ‘pepper’ it (i.e. spray a barely-visible layer) with Grimy Black. I then use 1/16"-wide stripe decals for the side- and center-lines. Dulux Gold for the yellow lines, light gray for the white lines.
Have a look at some fine black sand paper, too. 150-200 grit should look about right, but it will look like new pavement. You’d have to stripe it and weather it.
That’s just an idea, not what I have done. Clearly, most guys use styrene or dyed plaster products with great success.
Has anyone used the WS Road Asphalt kit? If so, how did it look?
REX
If you want a very fine grain surface suggest you got to an aquarium supplies and get coral sand (or something more planet friendly) and mix that with paint… grey… You might try a masonry paint as-is… or blackboard black…except that this will be matt black not grey… it has grit in it to catch the chalk… ever tried writing with chalk on gloss paint?
I use roofing paper/ tar paper for asphalt, works good easy to cut and glue. And cheap…(free) meaning at least one of my relatives/friends has a partial roll sitting around collecting dust.
I used to make real asphault, and the biggest stones in top coat are 1 inch or smaller.
That scales down to 12 thousandths.
Some of the asphalt roads on my layout are made with regular beach sand painted a dark charcoal color. Gives a realistic texture. For concrete I use N scale ballast painted a concrete color.
Asphalt:
Concrete:
I also used 3M non-skid tape and some hard foam packing materials for asphalt and painted and weathered them to look like the real thing.
Yes, I’ve used the Woodland Scenics Road System. I thought it was somewhat difficult to use the first time around, but I was satisfied with the result. I guess my main advice is after the initial smoothing, you should just let it sit. Once it starts to set up you will just make a mess of things if you try to smooth it further. The product will dry with some imperfections in it, but that adds to the realistic look.
I plan to use the product again, so I guess I must have been pretty happy with it.
[:)]
This will sound like a daft question… but…
How do you make pot holes?
If you spread a plaster type road and spend time getting the basic profile right…
Do you chip out a hole afterwards… does the colour go wrong? (show different where you’ve flaked away…?
Does the whole continue to spread indefinitely so that you end up having to do it again?
Then again, does anyone have ideas on puddles?
Just use clear varnish?
This may be daft… but look at how many photos of the real thing include puddles… they get everywhere… quite often just where you step out of your car in a hurry…
Will the Woodlands Scenics take potholes (or cracks or bumps) while your laying it?
Someone posted for puddles they used floor wax. I have yet to try it.
I used the WS Road system for my paving in my Intermodel area. They have a product called Topcoat, in either Concrete or Asphalt, it can be thinned with water to make the shade you want.
Although I’ve not tried it, I think you could make potholes, cracks, etc. as the mixture started to set up but before it hardens. I tried smoothing the material after it started to set up, and I was left with all kinds of texture I didn’t want. I ended up pouring another small layer on top of the first to make it smooth. The final product is easily scored, sanded, etc.