Building sidewalks and curbs

Building sidewalks and curbs from styrene as you have the roads shouldn't be too difficult.  For the sidewalks you could cut some thicker styrene into strips and then round one edge using sandpaper.  Once that's done you can use a ruler and the back side of hobby knife blade to scribe the expansion lines.  An expansion line scribed a few mm parallel to the edge can represent the curb.  

Blue/Pink Foam or meat trays

Jason, I've had fairly good luck on diorama's with either cutting the road and sidewalk into blueboard, and scribing the expansion joints. Paint with Woodland Scenic concrete topcoat, age with chalk and instant sidewalk. On existing surfaces I use the styrofoam from meat trays or the tops of egg cartons, depending on brand you may have to layer them, it's a little thin. Doug Foscale, one of our sponsers here has a series of DVD's out, the first one MODEL RAILROADING DETAILS AND SCENERY   has a great lesson on sidewalks. Also Lou Sassi's How to Build & Detail Model Railroad Scenes availible from Kalmbach has a chapter on making a suburban scene, including sidewalks.

Standard disclaimer YMMV, and I have no connection to any of the companies mentioned other than being a very happy customer.

Thanks Marc, Thats what I was

Thanks Marc,

Thats what I was considering will do some test pieces and see how it looks...

Cheers,

Jason... 

Thanks Sully, I will look out

Thanks Sully,

I will look out for the DVD's and the book. I like your blue board idea would be nice and quick and not to much fuss.  I have some Polyscale "concrete", is there a difference between that and the Woodlands "Concrete Topcoat", I've seen it used on this forum before as a base coat for a concrete loading ramp.

Interesting idea using the meat trays and egg cartons, simple things are often the best solution!  I also have a look at these and see how they work.

Cheers,

Jason...

Egg carton, meat trays and Blue board

Jason, I haven't had much luck with the Polyscale on foam, it just seems to get sucked into the surface, and never use a solvent based paint on plastic foam, unless you like filling craters.  After all, thats how they make polyurethane varnish, melt urethane in a solvent..  The WS Concrete Topcoat comes in a fairly large bottle (4 oz) and is availible for $4.99 from another of the sponsors, Scenic Exspress.

The meat trays can be used in alot of ways. I first saw it mentioned in a 60's era MR. but I saw it used on a club layout recently, they had a curved brick retaining wall, the actual curve was structural, part of the benchwork, and they covered it with foam with a brick pattern drawn on with a rounded pencil. once it was painted and weathered you wouldn't know it wasn't brick for real. Sorry, rambling long day..

I guess I should have told you the name of the vender of the DVD's Doug Foscale and his wife Anna Marie are the owners of FOS Scale LTD. and from what I've been able to gather the pun was intended.

Styrene Sidewalks

 The Bachman City Scenes kits from a decade ago came with about  40" of sidewalks and separate rounded corners.  Several kits gave me almost enough to do my entire city.  Almost.  I then found that I could duplicate them pretty easily by simply scribing the joints in styrene.  I purchase 1/16" material eight square feet at a time cut into 12" x 24" for transportation. There's a chain of plastic supply stores in the San Francisco Bay Area called Tap Plastics but I pretty sure most urban areas would have similar.  It takes two layers of the material to get a suitable thickness. Scribing curbs on the rounded corners is well beyond my skill set but happily I discovered that styrene strips from Evergreen (.060x .100) make excellent curbstones.

It's odd

it's odd, becuase I could have sworn that I had to replied to this, but I don't see the post.

With plastic, if you worry the edge of the plastic curbing with a hobby knife in certain, select spots, you can duplicate chipping and cracked off parts for a more worn look.

I find that important, as the biggest drawback, in my opinion, to using styrene is it's clean uniformity.

You did reply to it...

Scarpia,

Your mind isn't playing tricks, and you didn't walk through a rift in the space time continumum either!  You replied in our Blog Thread " model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/2628".  But I sincerely appreciate your effort on replying twice though......

Jason...

Ha! it's just old age than

Ha! so it's just old age then....Cheers!

Build basswood forms and pour Durhams Water Putty; link to paint

I've had excellent results from building forms from basswood then pouring Durham's Water Putty. Once it's set up, but before it's hard, scribe the cracks into it with the backside of a #11 hobby knife and a steel ruler. Building forms and pouring lets you adapt the sidewalk to the location. It's especially good for tapering the curb down to street level at grade crossings.

For concrete painting instructions, go to http://www.trolleyville.com/tv/school/lesson6_3/ and scroll down about 3/4 of the way. I co-wrote this article. There's also a companion article about asphalt paving at http://trolleyville.com/tv/school/lesson6_4/ .

Regards,

Charley

Charley, Thanks for the reply

Charley,

Thanks for the reply and the links.  Never heard of Durham's Water Putty, will google it and see what I can find.  Just had a look at your article, very nice and great detail.  Will give this a go on some test pieces of styrene soon.

Cheers,

Jason...

Jason

Jason, Charley's post reminded me of a past project of my own, that I had forgotten about. Note that this was a gaming piece, not meant for railroading, but the methods are still valid.

Basically you do what Charley said - but frame the curbing with plastic like you've done.

Here's a quick photo of what I meant about the worn edges of the concrete

I than filled the concrete part with hydrocal, and like charlie, cut my cracks and expansion seams once it was dry. For more pictures, see this page.

I "sealed" the hydrocal with a glue and water wash prior to painting, and ended up with a result like this

I no longer have access to this model, as I gave it away before I moved, so I can't give you better pictures. If you look at the sidewalk though, I think you can see what I mean.

So if you can't find water putty, other materials may work. If I do this again, I think I'll try and color the plaster fill before applying, only to minimize damage potential.

Very Impressive Scarpia, The

Very Impressive Scarpia,

The detail and realism that you have gotten into that scene is spot on!  A picture always tells a thousand words, seeing the concrete edging as you described in the earlier post is great, I'll give my curbs a rough up before painting.

Can you share your secret on how you got the concrete colouring and weathering so realistic?  This is the stage that I don't want to stuff up seeing I have so much to area to get right!  I also need the practice before I attempt our intermodal yard on the layout as this has a huge area of concrete to be done...

Cheers,

Jason...

Painting

First up, I'd recommend you use photographs of the real thing before painting, to match colors. Concrete isn't always uniform in color, especially in older areas as sections get poured at different dates (due to repairs, etc). Some "real" pictures can show you how the variations actually look.

The example I put up was painted with just three coats of paint over the reddish base (one of the keys, in my mind, is actually limiting your base color selection, this can help in tying in a scene as a whole).  The three coats was a dark gray, using what I call a heavy overbrush, than lighter gray in a light overbrush, and finallly an off white in a light drybrush. Over that, dirt and soot sections were added via layered grays and blacks as drybrushed steps, but a wash would work just as well.

As I think you might ask, what I call overbrushing is to paint the subject with a normal amount of paint on the brush, but not fill in the sunken details like you do when you "paint" paint. This is in contrast to a drybrush, where you remove most paint from the brush before touching it to the work.

A heavier overbrush means you go farther down the  crevices, a lighter one should be a less deep. So in this project, the heavier gray overbrush went on, leaving just a bit of base color showing, the lighter gray overbrush went on showing both a bit of the heavier gray and the basecoat, and than the white drybrush was used on the edges to pick them out.

I hope this helps.

I would "second" Scarpia's advice to use photos.

Not only is concrete poured at different times, but it is very porous.  Therefore it stains easily anytime anything is spilled on it, and usually requires some sort of acid bath to get stains out.  People may use an acid bath on their driveway or on the sidewalk in front of their house to enhance curb appeal, but cities, industries, or commercial property owners won't bother doing more that sweeping.  The only time it will get washed is when it rains.  If cars or machinery drop oil on concrete, the stains stay there until the rain washes some of it out.  The one exception to some extent is car dealerships.  A used car dealer may not bother cleaning up a lot, some are very seedy looking, but a new car dealer has to keep the manufacturer happy with the appearance of their property, so they may go to more lengths to keep the lot as clean as possible.

Another vote for using photos

I also recommend you use photos to model with. Nothing will make your modeling more realistic than to work to match what you see in photos.

Only the most talented can imagine with perfect realism. Most of us aren't that talented - but using photos to guide you makes up for any "lack" of talent and moves your modeling to the next level very quickly.

This is one of those "secrets" of the model railroading masters - most of them model from photos.

Scarpia, Thanks for the

Scarpia,

Thanks for the advice on using photos, and thanks for the how too on your scene with the curbing and sidewalks.

Cheers,

Jason...

All great points to remember

All great points to remember Russ, and also include on the layout.  I will start with Google Earth and see what I can find there.  Then I suppose it will be off to Google to search for some more specific photos of concrete areas that I will be modelling on our layout.

The areas that I will be modelling will be high traffic, dirty industries.

Cheers,

Jason...

Thanks for the "secret" Joe,

Thanks for the "secret" Joe, I must admit that having guys like yourself willing to share the secrets, tricks of the trade, and how too's is making the whole beginner modelling experience absolutely enjoyable.  I will see if I can find some photos of intermodal yards, oil terminals and general factory sights around the Chicago/Illinois area as this is the area my layout will be based around.

And I must also thank you for your DVD's they are also making the whole modelling experience easier to learn and master.

Cheers,

Jason...

Sidewalks

I've had good luck with using styrene or wood edging to form the curb and a backing where the building goes and then filling it in with plain old pre-mixed wall patch.   When dried, you sand it smooth but it will have realistic cracks in it and is easily stained or painted as desired.   Its easy to scribe expansion breaks and curb backs too.   Works well for roads by using a 1/16th square strip of wood for the crown the spread out to the road edge.   When dry, sprinkle with very fine sand and paint.   You get a good asphault looking road surface.   Highlite with pot holes and road markings.