His town’s buildings, cars, and trucks are all sitting on top of the Blue Styrofoam. He’s ready for some streets, however there is the concern that certain paints attack styrofoam. Neither he nor I have much experience with Styrofoam topped layouts. We’re from the “Old School of Plywood”.
To those of you that have made streets on your layout, please share the methods you used to create them. We looked at the ready made roads at LHS’s, but have seen far better looking streets and roads in photos of modelers that did it themselves.
I use Woodland Scenics products. I think they make good-looking streets and roads. You use their paving tape to outline the roads. Then you use this product called Smooth-It, which is kinda like plaster. Then you can paint it with Top Coat, another Woodland Scenics product. You can buy Top Coat that looks like Asphalt or Concrete. Hope I helped.[:D]
I used the same as Pennsyperson, also places where I had sidewalks (like the model power sheets that come with houses) I just painted the foam with the Asphalt stains from Woodland Scenics. Looks pretty good because the sidewalk is a step up from the street which is realistic.[8D]
I use double stick tape with masking tape on top b/c it’s easy to change if necessary. For curbs, I use a product called Realroad that I found at a trade show cut into strips. I soak index cards in Woodland Scenics Concrete, and place onto white glue in shoulder (held back by curbs). For cracks in sidewalk: cut up the index cards, and when placing in glue, put WS Burnt Grass into cracks. This method is great for creating a raised sidewalk, and storm drains are easy (paint one of the curbs and add a weathered Model Memories sewer grate).
I’ve always used poster board and cut it out like I want it by measuring where my roads are going to be, then spray paint it either flat black or dark primer gray outside on news paper, then pen it in place and paint the pen heads to match. If you want yellow stripes down the middle of your roads, you can use adhesive labels like those you might use to label file cabinets with, spray paint them flat yellow and cut them out with a razor knife and metal straight edge guide or ruler and stick them in place being careful to space them out evenly.
Hi Antonio I’ve used the ws system and it’s wonderfull.But if you have lots of roads to build it could get pricey. A coffee shop member put me onto using the premade pollyfilla in the squeeze tube. trowel it on and once it sets paint it with the ws paint or any of your fav brand of acrylics or model paint . This works well. Rob
I used .030" styrene. being i model and live in the south our roads are sunbaked. So i painted mine a flat light gull gray, used yellow and white pin stripe for lines and used flat black paint on the joints in random locations to show the base tar oozing through as it does here in the hot south. As far as my yellow and white lines, I put them on the road IAW a DOT book i got from the library.
Black roofing felt or tar paper with lines painted with Testors yellow and white paint markers and Smalltown USA HO sidewalks. I have done this method for the roads on my HO layout.
I used the Woodland Scenics products until I started buying double-sided foam tape, molding plaster and acrylic paint from the craft department at Wal-Mart. I’ve used chart tape, correcting pens, etc. for striping.
The matte board and sheet styrene methods can be very effective, especially considering the price you pay for a big sheet of illustration board.
The simplest method is to simply get some matte finish exterior latex paint made up to a road color you like and paint the town’s roads. Then use the tile sheet styrene for building bases to simulate sidewalks and glue those on your painted base with Liquid Nails acrylic (the hobby or craft type). Stripe with whatever method works best and your city is laid out. Latex paint won’t attack Styrofoam and a couple of coats will give you a sturdy (and washable) finish. You won’t get the nice cracks, but you can use charcoal or weathering chalks to indicate the tire marks and wear.
Some of the self-adhesive road products are okay, especially if you have a town to pave. I have used the Busch on dioramas and it’s okay. You get a couple of yards in each roll. Nice thing is that application is quick and you don’t have to worry about keeping constant width, etc., and there are ready-made intersections and curves.
Lou Sassi’s first scenery book has his method, it’s styrene…Also Durhams Water Putty works real good. For crowded downtown scenes, you can’t beat the Cornerstone street sections.
Using foam you can cheat, go to any craft store and get Cream Coat paint or Apple Barrel, they will not attack the foam, then you only have to use styrene strips for the sidewalks. I would get the large bottle of black and a large white, you can then mix just about any shade of cement or ashpalt you want. This paint also works great for weathering cars and cleans up with warm water.
I use mini-roads and sidewalks by pikestuff (smalltown) The Miniroads simulate city type asphalt roads just fine for me, The sidewalks have driveway entrances and manhole covers in some sections. My[2c]