Photograph

The new track "special issue"¹ showed concrete bridge abutments made by gluing a photograph of a concrete wall onto a styrene shape. This gave a very realistic weathered appearance that is hard to get with concrete. In the photos, at least, it looked fantastic.

Chris

pg 21 of How to Build Realistic Reliable Track

Wood or styrene or plaster

I've built abutments out of styrene sheet and shapes that have worked fairly well. But it's not too easy to do this for compound shapes.

I carved the piers for the upper bear creek bridge out of some scraps of wood I have. This let me do compound curvature. When carving out of wood be sure to sand the wood well, then seal it, then resand it. Repeat until all traces of the grain are gone.

Concrete that was cast before the days of plywood forms will have marks for each board of the form they used. These are difficult to model for real, but light pencil lines do a credible job of simulating them.

Chris is right that it can be difficult to do a paint job that simulates real concrete color. But in the case of 3d objects, like bridge piers, especially those with with tapering sides and/or compound curves it can be very difficult to get photos glued down without hard-to-hide seams or edges that don't match up well.

Another alternative is to build forms and cast abutments/piers out of plaster. Then while the plaster is still green (hasn't set completely) carve lines, cracks, etc into the plaster. If you're nuts enough (and patient enough) to try it, building forms from individual boards will give very realistic results for early concrete castings. Once the plaster has set up for a few days you can color it with washes. If you're modeling a pier or abutment with damage the plaster method is good. Model the part that got torn off (exagerate its size) and then tear it off while the plaster is still green leaving a nice rough/jagged surface.

Sorry, not much detail here, just ideas. Joe Fugate does a good job showing how he modeled a concrete tunnel portal including wing walls on volume 4 (I think) of his 5 DVD set ( http://www.model-trains-video.com). If you're interested perhaps you could get only the tunnel portal construction segment as a video download?

Cheers,

Charlie

Building Concrete abutments an easy way

easy way- first you take shoe box type card board and make a basic mold. Use masking tape to hold it together. Next cut strips of the same cardboard as lumber framing, size it in your scale about 10in wide strips and then line the inside of the mold. Make sure to leave a small gap between each board just a slight gap so some of the plaster can squeeze through for the effect of early 1900's construction. Just use Elmer's glue or goo to hold the scale boards in place. Make two molds as you will be tearing them apart to get the abutments free allow them to dry for 8 hrs or over nite. The next day mix some plaster of Paris and pore it in the mold and set it aside for at least 1 hour to set well. once set, carefully peel the cardboard molds off the abutments and then comes the fun part.

1st - using any small knife blade chip small pieces off of the abutments and poke little holes in it to give it some slight scaring to somewhat match the proto type. Once your satisfied with the distressing use a small brush and clean all the loose plaster off them.

Indian Ink is the best thing I have ever found for making plaster look like concrete.

take 4 0unces of water then add 4-6 drops of Indian ink and stir well. using a 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch wide soft flat paint brush apply a wash to the plaster and let it dry for an hour. Then if it still looks like it needs to be darker add another coat of the Indian ink wash. usually one coat will do the trick. Once it's the color you want let it dry for a day, then using a flat Matt medium, paint a coat or 2 on the whole thing coat all sides and then after they are dry they're ready to install on the Railroad this will seal the abutments.

Hope this helps you I've made about 20 of this type abutment and Concrete trestles this way and the alswys came out great.

Good Luck!!

Dan

Anchor Cement

You can also use anchor cement used for anchoring machinery to floors. With this you get a very good finish before you start weathering. The cement sets very quickly, so you don't need to wait very long.

Good info

Thanks for all the great tips, guys.  This bridge will be the centerpiece of my layout's "railfan" section, so I want to take my time and make it look good.

Concrete by grout

 Hi

I used tile grout over a plywood base. It looks like new concrete as I haven't got around to weathering yet.

After the grout has hardened I sanded it smooth and painted it. I find tile grout simpler to apply than plaster, sands down easier, plus it sticks better (after all that is it's purpose).

Mike Ruby

Those look great!

Mike,

Your "concrete by grout" looks fantastic!

I'd be interested in seeing your techniques discussed more thoroughly.  Any chance of an article or forum clinic?

Concrete Grout or filler?

Actually thinking about it I think the bottom layer was grout with fine surface filler over the top, this was done quite a few years ago. Oddly this is on a module which is just about to be used for the first time in years. I'll have a better look when it is setup.

I'm not really very experienced with this. I was experimenting to find the best way. The grout is just laid on with a spatula, with the filler over the top to get a smooth finish as it goes on quite thin, but the grout sticks better and seemed to fill gaps better. The filler is sanded to smooth it even further.

I think you maybe able to get spalling by removing some of the top layer before it dries to reveal the rougher stuff underneath, as I've had this effect if pushing too hard on the spatula. I left it this way on a parking area to the left of the bridge. I'd have to go back and experiment again to find out exactly how it worked.

I have some grey grout that I plan to try out for tarmac.

Mike Ruby