Remember the old Petula Clark song, “Downtown?” Well, it’s time that I did some work on downtown Moose Bay. You’ve all seen most of these buildings before, but for a long time they’ve been perched on the pink stuff.
The downtown area is, naturally enough, sitting above the subway tracks. So, it’s yet another liftoff. I did this one with 1/4-inch posterboard. The first step was to cut risers out of styrene sheet, so that I could “fill” the street with Durham’s Water Putty for paving. Each riser is glued in place, and takes the space of a building plus the surrounding sidewalks:
Next, as promised, I mixed up a batch of putty, pretty thin and with a splash of vineger to retard setting. I poured it into the streets and smoothed it with a foam brush. (Thanks to Bob Grech for the water putty and foam brush tips, incidentally.) After it hardened, I sanded down the high spots and gave it a couple of washes with gray acrylic, intentionally thin and unevenly coated:
I then cut another sheet of styrene to go on top of each of the risers. D’oh! Why didn’t I cut both sheets at the same time, before I glued the risers down? Well, you’ve now got the advantage of experience, I guess. Anyway, these form the sidewalks, and they look better if the building is sitting below them. So, after cutting the sidewalk level, I placed the buildings on them and cut out the centers, so the buildings would just fit inside:
Each of the sidewalk sheets is painted with a different shade of gray (I used “rainy day gray” for that) so the sidewalks would contrast with the street. I used a brown for the areas which won’t have side
Very opportune timing on your posting. I am musing about the town planning for my layout. You gave me some great pointers. I like the idea of the sidewalks being made with cut-outs for the structures. Excellent little tutorial and very nice work.
Y’know, it was Simon’s miners that gave me the kick to post this. I was following the “Where are the miners?” discussion a while back, and when they showed up at the mine I realized the problem had been solved. Besides that, today has featured some excellent shots by a lot of people on Photo Fun, and Sue (gear-jammer) gave me a big smile with the cowboys in the trackside pool.
That’s funny! We have some sort of an inspirational feedback loop going on. I tagged some photos of the miners and the starting set that I modified them from at the end of the old thread.
A question about the water putty. I just purchased some from the hardware store and have not had a chance to experiment. What sort of set-up time do you have if you don’t put the vinegar in it? Is slowing down the setup a necessary precaution?
Also, I have one road that will have a slope, will the putty method work for that, or is it too liquid and liable to flow down the hill?
Moose Bay eh? Now that’s getting just a little too close to the name of my home town, Moose Jaw, a large divisional point of the C.P.R. on the prairies. Also there is very large pilot training school there. We will be keeping our eyes on you.
A while back, I bought a couple of big sheets of styrene from US Plastics, the Rubbermaid people. I think it was 0.020, but it might be 0.040. Anyway, it’s about a 16th of an inch thick. My first step was to put down the risers, and then fill the roads just up to the top of the risers.
The putty itself will start to harden very quickly. I mixed up about a half-cup of it for this project, and added maybe a teaspoon of vineger. My first project with the putty convinced me to slow down the setting - it only gave me 5 or 10 minutes before it got unworkable. With the vinegar, and probably a thinner water mix, I got 15-20 minutes. I kept a cup of water nearby to periodically rinse the foam brush. The first time I did this, with no vinegar or cup of water, the brush became a use-once-and-toss tool.
The putty is quite thick, and will stick to a slope even if you mix it thin. It’s great stuff.
Also, I really can’t say for sure if the vinegar is responsible, but this application seemed softer and easier to sand than the first one.
The putty takes a wash of acrylic paint very well, too.
Oh, the streets are 3 inches wide. Yeah, that’s probably a bit narrower than a standard street width converted to HO, but it allowed me to fit in the buildings and sidewalks in the available space.
Excellent post. The prototype for my downtown area had trolley tracks in place through the 1950’s, even thought the trolley service was long gone. I was thinking of embedding some cheap flex track with most of the ties removed to simulate this. No trolleys, mind you, but the track still there. Do you think your street method would work with my idea? I haven’t fully researched this yet so I don’t know of any other options I might have.
Misterbeasley excellent post now thanks to you my issue for the top layer roads are cured. One thing I have to ask do you have tracks running through the streets to various companies? if so how did you go about with making your roads like that? Again excellent post.
Thank you! There’s more great stuff here than all the how to books. You are a terrific asset to the model railroad community. Thank you again Mr. B. [:D]
Outstanding work, MisterBeasley. My own urban area is going to be fairly large with a mirror to double its apparent size. Because of that, it will be the last part of the mainline I scenic. So I am at least a year away from doing mine. This will help.
I have used Durham’s on a couple large parking lots I’ve modeled recently and I mixed it considerable thinner than what was recommended. About 1.5 to 1. I found it was easier to smooth with the thin mix. I haven’t tried the vinegar to extend the working time but I will on my next effort. One of the benefits of the thin mix is I got natural stress cracks after a few days when the mix dried. Some of the larger cracks I filled it to look like sealed cracks on real blacktop surfaces.
Your narrow streets remind me of the ones I have seen in Cincinnati. For whatever reason, many of their donwtown streets are much narrower than I have seen in other big cities.
The winding former cow-paths of Boston are narrow, also. I went back and measured the streets. The one going down the center in most of the shots is 3 inches, but I used 2 1/2 for the others to squeeze in the sidewalks. I guess I’ll have to ban on-street parking.
Right behind this scene is, coincidentally, the trolley station. I’ll be working on that as time permits, and I’ll try to get some shots as I go along. Thanks everyone for the nice support.
