Anyone ever use this stuff? Apparently it’s flexible, which I like, but have not heard much about it.
I just use .040" - .060" thick styrene cut a scale 4’ or 5’ wide and scribe lines across spaced the same as the width. Then I brush paint Floquil concrete, intentionaly giving it brush strokes to give the broomed concrete texture look.
I actually thought about doing that, however, I found that this was much cheaper. It’s cut to width, has scale lines in it (including cracks), and does not need to be cut (apparently). I hope it works out.
Bump.
I use Evergreen 1/4" tile sheet styrene. The squares are roughly 3’ in N scale, and a single sheet will give you 11 million miles of sidewalk. For urban settings I go 2 panels wide, for residential one. And as the illustration above shows, you can do wider concrete paving for industrial settings, passenger platforms etc. To add curbing, just get .040 strip stock and glue it to the street side edge.
At roughly $4 a sheet, I don’t see how you can get sidewalk material much cheaper than that.
Lee
That looks nice, but is not prototypical when it comes to sidewalks. Typically sidewalks aren’t “tile-type” sidewalks.
I’m not sure what you mean… Sidewalks run anywhere from 36" to 12 ft. wide, and are always scribed with expansion joints/prescribed crack lines of one sort or another. What’s not prototypical about having a 6’ walkway divided into 36" squares? That’s what runs down the street in front of my house!
I suppose if I wanted to, I could scuff up the surface with some sandpaper, but I’m completely satisfied with the look mine achieves, and I know I couldn’t make it look any better and spend the same amount of money.
Why do you say it isn’t prototypical? With out trying to sound flippant, I model trains, not sidewalks… close enough is …well…close enough!
Lee
I didn’t mean to sound idiotic.
What I mean is that usually sidewalks look like they have one square when you’re walking down one. If you take a typical sidewalk, there are expansion joints, but they go clear across (perpindicular) the sidewalk, not parallel to the axis of it. The Bar Mills sidewalk has expansion joints across the sidewalk, not running along with it like the sheet you had pictured.
Sorry for being difficult. 
That does look nice. I guess my objective is always to find the most economical solution without a major compromise on appearance. I consider the parallel joint to be a very minor compromise.
Lee
I had heard that those sidewalks you have pictured here are some sort of pressed paper product. They look good but I wonder how they would hold up over time. Or if paint would hurt them.
I’m pretty picky about the look of my sidewalks too. I know what you mean about the “tiled” look. The Rix Products sidewalks look pretty good. I’m kind of leaning toward the Walthers Cornerstone street/sidewalk system. It’s not that cheap, but it looks great!
The Evergreen sidewalk sheets come in a few different square sizes.
I hope it stand up well. We’ll see when I get it. There is a train show in Jacksonville this weekend, and I hope to score some things like more DPM N scale buildings, either a Conrail SD-35 or Santa Fe GP-60, two red Atlas Ford 9000 tractors, some random cheap N scale boxcars, FRED, and an EV Conrail caboose.
Do you have any pictures of the Rix Products sidewalks?
Well, I received the sidewalk, and I have to say, I’m not impressed. You can certainly flex the sidewalk along its longitudinal axis, but not side-to-side. In other words, the sidewalk wil work great if you have hills and slight grades, but it won’t work so great on road curves. Ughhhh. I will either have to force it through the curve or go another option. I’m fairly disappointed.
The sidewalk is made almost of a balsa wood type of material (it feels that way at least).
I wonder if that craft foam stuff would work? It’s available in a shade of grey, but I think it can also be painted. You’d have to figure out how to detail in the expansion joints, but it’s very flexible, and can also be cut to whatever shape you want… Just a thought.
Lee
Craft foam stuff?
http://www.rixproducts.com/city_sidewalks.htm
The Rix are HO, but they can be cut down.
They make sheets of 12"x12" foam that’s about 1/16" thick. Folks use them for sidewalks and alleys. They work pretty good, but you have to draw jour joints on with a fine pencil.
Nu Line also makes sidewalks in N scale.