I am approaching the scenic stage in my layout and I would like to make a small dirt road. The track is ballested where I want the road to go, but I think I can just put dirt over the ballest and glue it in. What do you think is the best material to make a dirt road with? Is is sand from my children’s sandbox? Should I use plaster of some kind and paint it dirt/mud colors?
Thanks for your advice.
Go out in your yard and get some real dirt, sift it through a fine screen (I use a dryer filter) Take a magnet and make sure there are no metal particals in the dirt. Spread the dirt where you want the road and spray with wet water then use your glue/water mixture to hold it in place. I do not have any dirt roads on my HO layout but I have made a trail through the underbrush leading to the tracks, and have made an apple orchard. The dirt looks about as real as you can get. Hope this helps. Mike
I like Mike’s idea, would probably look pretty good, but I’d probably go a different route, only because dirt outside will look a lot darker under my own layout lighting. Depends on your lighting and how you want it to look
If I were you I’d be outside on a day where the weather mimics how I’m trying to get my layout to look. Take a picture of a dirt road that embodies your idea of how you want one to look on your layout.
Use a fine medium of your choice (sand if the color is light enough) and start mixing in dry powder pigments under your layout lighting until what you see in front of you matches the picture. This method is the most realistic-looking I’ve seen so far.
That’s very similar to the method I use. Instead of dry pigments, I use powdered chalk. Both achieve the same result.
Am I the only one who cheats and uses Woodland Scenics, and Scenic Express ground foam dirt for roads? I found out afte you spray this stuff it really starts looking good. Add some black wash to make it darker or buy soil from Woodland Scenics is black top soil, then you got Dirt Same with Scenics Express but I dont think they have a darker color than just earth…
Or is rich enough to pay for dirt? 
Why buy it when I can go outside and get it free?[:)]
I like the Woodland Scenics stuff too. I taught High School Biology and remember noting that one square inch of top soil can have as many as 100 different creatures in it, mostly so small so you can’t see them. If I were to use real dirt, after sifting it, I would have to bake it in an oven at around 200 degrees for a while to kill any critters in it. I’m not sure it’s worth the time, considering how little Woodland Scenics products you need to create a scene and how inexpensive they are.
Hope this helps.
Mondo
I just use dirt from my yard, too. I’ve also used potting soil. My wife has a bag of it for her plants. It’s very fine textured, sterile (no little beasties living in it, or seeds or foreign material). I use the wet water/diluted glue method to bond it in place. Don’t forget to put ruts in the road. If it crosses a track, don’t put it between the rails. Put heavily weathered wood planks between the rails and for a couple of feet on either side.
Something else I do with real dirt is to put down a layer of dirt and bond it wherever I’m going to put scenery–grass, fields, brush, whatever. After all, what’s under the grass, fields and brush? Dirt! That way, if the scenery material goes on a bit thin in places, dirt will be realistically showing through instead of painted plywood.
JW:
Free isn’t always the best deal if it isn’t what you are looking for.
Dirt from the outside is often way too dark under indoor lighting, and it may be the wrong color to boot. Dry powdered pigments like these from Crayola mixed with plaster is the way I go. For a few bucks (less than $4 per jar), I can get some black, brown, yellow, and blue powdered pigments, and for a few bucks more I get some white plaster of paris.
With this combination of materials, I can literally mix any dirt color I need in a few minutes – and if I match the color to a reference outdoor photo, it will look right under my layout lighting. Plus, if you include at least 50% plaster in the mix, all you need to do is moisten it with a mist of water and it’s fixed in place once the plaster sets. It doesn’t get much easier than that. [swg]
NOTE: One thing to watch out for is the pigment and plaster mix can dry darker once you mist it with water. It’s best to test your mix on a scrap of material first by misting it with water and see what color it is when it’s dry. If it’s too dark add more plaster to lighten it, and try again until you get the color you’re after.
And we all know that every one of those 100 different critters are deadly posion. Since you are an expert, do you reckon that using wet glue made from 1/8 glue and 7/8 70% rubbing alcohol might kill a few of them 100 critters, and the arid enviroment of the layout might do in a few more? Maybe even if you use wet glue, might not the detergent in it kill a few? How many that survive do you think might infest your layout with the creeping crud and require a hazmat team to clean out? Do you bake your shoes in an oven at 200 degrees everytime you come in from the yard? Why not? Fred
one word “Clay” not good dirt. And its easier to do I am lazy.
While part of what you say may be true, $4 a jar and some plaster is at least $20 total, that’s no small outlay for, say a 14 year old just starting their layout. If the real dirt is too dark, it can be lightened with some plaster, or painted after it’s glued in place. We should be offering people ideaS and not steering them into believing that the dollar spending way is the only way to have a nice layout. Fred
It’s much easier and cheaper for me to get real dirt from my yard and mix it with colored powdered chalk than drive 120 miles to pick up a $1.99 bag of WS foam.[:)]
I used real dirt on my last layout. I built it during the heating season, and set an aluminum pie plate containing the dirt on top of the hot wood furnace which shared the basement with my layout. Later, I didn’t notice any little critters having their ways with my layout.
Having seen what it looks like, even screened, in the much dimmer lighting indoors, I would not use it again. You can use zip texturing and plain old plaster to sculpt paths or trails, even dirt roads.
I used Woodland Scenics Smooth-It for the first time when I laid this dirt track a week or so ago, and acrylic paint took to it well
Jon
Jon, that looks just great. Might have to try that myself.
I used alum. oxide sand blasting medium for glass etching from the craft store. one bottle goes a long way. painted out glue where the road was to go, sprinke on enough to cover, waited about five minutes, and anywhere the glue soaked thru, more powder was added. let dry overnight, and vac up any extra.
I use real finely sifted dirt on my layout too. However while I have it wet with white glue and water I take an HO auto with treaded tires and run it back and fourth on the road to give it a well rutted tire tracked look. Then let it dry.
As the old saying goes, “God made the dirt so the dirt don’t hurt!” Especially if you bake the dirt in a warm oven (200 degrees) for a couple of hours, filter it through a fine mesh screen (or a nylon stocking for really fine dirt) and run a magnet over it to get rid of the metal critters that can attack your locomotives. I use dirt gathered from the land that used to be the railyard I am modeling, light in color so it looks just fine on the layout with suitable lighting. Glued down with Woodland Scenics wood glue and a wash of 90% rubbing alcohol, it stays put quite well, and the cost is just right! Obviously sometimes the dirt color you want is not available locally, but for me, I model the town where I live so the dirt is just the right shade.