I am soon facing the need to model (HO) the street I used to live on. Back in those days the road surface consisted of hot tar with small pebbles, about the size of peas, pressed in by steamroller (not literally a steam roller but that is what we called it). The pebbles were white to gray to somewhat reddish in hue. The dark tar would show through here and there. We used to pop tar bubbles with our fingers on hot days. Getting some tar on our shoes was not unheard of.
From a distance it looked fairly smooth, particularly once cars had driven on for a few years. However if you fell off your bike you quickly realized how rough surfaced it really was. I thought of using the finest ballest available but even that is much larger than the pebbles. Right now I am leaning towards weathering fine grit sandpaper but I am open to suggestions. The challenge will be to capture both the colors and texture of this kind of roadway.
try AMI roadbed material and fine ballast. the AMI stuff looks like tar taffy and mxing the proper ballast should give you the texture and look you want
That sounds like Macadam. That process is still used here on rural roads, though now it’s called triple-shot, it’s still the same thing. Tar is laid down, fine gravel laid on top then pressed in with a roller. I have modeled this type of road before and you’re on the right track with your sandpaper idea. I can’t remember exactly what grit I used but it was really fine. May have been 800 grit.
I did my version in Sublime City with Drywall seam compound, acrylic paint and saw dust. I then carved cracks and used a black wash. I then dry brushed a little gray. It looks good from a couple of feet away, but is only fair from a real closeup. This pic is from before the final cleanup. It still awaits white stripe.
I got some stuff years ago. I think the companies name was High Ball Ballast.(???) The color was Fine Grey Cinders. This stuff was super fine. It looked like the stuff they make wet automotive sandpaper out of. I used it to make alleys and country roads. Looked great.
I know the paving method your talking about. They did this to the alleys behind my old house. You get two dark grey paths where the tires travel and then lighter grey looser gravel in the middle and on the sides. Just the opposite look of an old blacktop road.
I don’t know if that companies still in buiness. I hang onto my last bag like it was gold but I lost the label.
and while the process sounds correct I am not sure this street was technically macadam because if I understand correctly the true macadam process uses crushed, sharply angular stones while this road I am modeling had very round small pebbles pressed into pure tar so the surface looked light colored in general. The rock was not crushed – I assume the pebbles came from some beach somewhere and were naturally rounded
I think everyone here knows what is being talked about. I grew up on a road like that and every summer they added to the process. I think this is a cheap way to update the road. ANd oh, how mother hated when we played in to newly done road. We used sticks to pop the bubbles. But our feet were another matter! Father used gasoline to make short work of removing it from our feet. and the next two months would be spent getting it off the car.
At any rate, Dave, I think the link talks about what would be further below the top, thusly jagged stones may be used. On the top smoother stone coming into contact with tires and feet would be more desirable. Or, it may depend on what is availa
I think the type of rock depends on what is coming out of the local rock pit. In rural TN many secondary (in that time frame) roads used the white crushed stone for the surface while the lesser used roads had the pea gravel (orange) for the topping. I think in the day pea gravel was cheaper than crushed limestone. Tweet.
Try Arizona Rock & mineral Company N scale ballast. I’ve used some for doing the Yard and engine terminal on an HO layout. This stuff is fine. I think the Cinders is made from real Cinders, Becuase when I was done my hands where all black.
I have had roads like that on my old train layout. I used black gloss enamal (I am sure laytex would work) and sprinkled very fine white sand on it while the paint was wet. You can vary the amount of sand you put down to get the blacker streaks where the car tires run. I believe the sand came from Campbel but that was a long time ago. I used the same sand when I build a Campbel sand house and that was in the early seventies. Perhaps the fine sand that you get in the craft store for doing art in a bottle or glass would work. That is fine and comes in many colors. You may consider passing a magnet over it to be sure there is nothing in it ferrous.
Good luck and have fun experimenting. By the way they do about the same thing here in Lakewood Washington and they call it chip sealing, but I don’t think the stones are as smooth as they were when I was growing up, but the tar still sticks to the car the same.
They just did this on the “parkway” road near my house last summer. The road is kind of one step up from a residential street, but not a full fledged secondary road. The road was previously fresh asphalt. They did put down a lot of the crushed stone so that the tar was completely covered, so tar wasn’t an issue. The only issue is the loose stones are everywhere. After a few months it was pretty well packed down thought. I live in the suburbs on the edge of the Twin Cities, not in a rural area.
Highball also makes a very fine grain ballast if you can find it. I have an old bag from about 20 years ago that I use when even WS fine ballast is too big.
