I’m working on a coal company yard and plan to make the yard itself mostly dirt. There will be a truck or two in the yard taking on coal. In either a MR mag past issue or Scale Rails I remember seeing a photo of how someone was able to create what looked like tire tracks in the dirt that would have been made by trucks as they pulled into a dirt yard. I think the tire tracks looked a bit lighter than the surrounding dirt but I’m not sure. Also, the dirt around here is pretty black. Tried to look through my old issues but got crossed eyed eventually and gave up. Does anyone know how to do this?
Model Trains Video (a MRR advertiser) show step by step how they do it in vol 4 of their series. Scroll to chapter 7.
http://model-trains-video.com/volume4.php
You can download just that chapter for like $2.00 but the whole series is a worthy buy
ratled
How about fixing a lower darker layer, putting down a lighter layer and then running your automobile or other vehicle through the lighter layer, before fixing it with glue or matte medium? or some variation there of.
Alan
What I’ve seen is that the tire tracks are usually lighter than the surrounding ground. I think your idea would make them darker than the surrounding ground. I took a look at the video preview mentioned in the other response and that looks promising.
Don’t forget that if trucks going into the yard are sinking in a little and leaving tracks they will be taking dirt out of the yard with them… and this is likely to leave at least stain (if not clods) on the hard road surface.
I suspect that imprinted tyre tracks in such a yard would tend to be the same colour as the rest of the material - the apparent lighter tone would result from light bouncing off the dirt at the different angles caused by the tyre imprint… so, while it might be useful to accentuate the track by using a slightly lighter colour I wouldn’t want to go too light. If the colour is much different it will tend to look like the tyres have broken through into a different layer.
One thing I will get round to trying one decade is to apply a non-matt silk or gloss varnish to the track imprints… this will reflect light differently… it may also suggest that the track is wet…
Hope this helps.
[:P]
I’m probably being to obsessive about this but I’m doing this on my local club layout and there are a couple of members who will comment if anything on the layout is not top notch - and I can’t really blame them. I’ve been looking at roads while driving the past week and find every kind of variation you can think of. It reminds me of when I was first trying to paint bricks and mortar. I had this idea that all the bricks should be exactly the same color and that the mortar had to be perfect. The more I looked around, the more I saw that the vast majority of brick walls had tremendous variation in them, in brick color and mortar color. Anyway, I think I’ll experiment with a variety of ways to make a concrete type road and see which comes out the 'best". I ran across an old article in which the person actually printed a concrete road on a sheet of decal paper and then put the decal on a styrene base.
If you have looked at the real thing and they are all a little different. How cna whatever you do be “wrong?”
Just remember that in a yard where there are lots of aggregates around, they will get on the ground and pack down. Also, a good trucking company doesn’t like to beat their trucks in their own yard. Even a dirt yard would be fairly solid, with the possible exception of the height of mud season (spring). Ruts with much depth would be at the edges of the yard away from the heavily traveled areas, not so much in the middle.
Good luck,
Hi!
As an aside, I found a good way to put “rubber on the pavement” is to take a free rolling vehicle and paint the rear wheel treads with a light black wash. While damp, roll it over your streets and get that “jack rabbit” start look.
ENJOY,
Mobilman44
Thanks for the tip. I am actually going to glue down the dirt ground in the yard tonight and I’ll make sure its got a packed down look. Good point about the variety of road appearances.
Nice idea about showing tire treads. Thanks.