How to Make EASY Concrete Roads - Model Railroading - HO Scale Customs

#HowTo #ConcreteRoads #ModelRailroading #Dioramas #TrainLayouts
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Full Article: goo.gl/YvqM6z
There are a ton of products out there to help you create awesome concrete roads for your model railroad layout. A lot of them are great and they end up looking really nice, but they can take a while and some of the products can be a little pricey.
Using some of the tips that we’ve picked up from around the model railroading world along with some of our own added touch, we want to show you how we’re making our concrete roads on our layout with just some simple tools, insulation foam, acrylic paints, and some weathering chalks.
What we used:
Hobby Knife (use safety protection)
HO Scale Rule
Brushes
Weathering Pigments
Acrylic Paints
Insulating Foam
Cardstock
The first step was to use a flat, blemish-free piece of foam (it might already be glued down on your layout as a base), and measure out your road using your scale rule. Brett showed us this measuring out a 20-foot wide road since that’s a minimum standard of clearance for most roads in the United States. If you’re adding a shoulder, you might want to add 4 scale feet to either side for a total of a 28-foot wide road.
Once the width of the road is measured out, we cut in our concrete relief cuts, in real life, this is done to keep the road from severely cracking when the ground moves and freezes, but we all know that works sooo well with our roads… Sarcasm. The relief cuts were also cut in 20-foot increments for the length of the road.
It was also at this moment that we added some cracks and aging features to the road. This is an optional step and entirely up to you. Have a little fun with some creative freedom and add some fine cracks or potholes to the road.
After cutting the lines into the foam where desired, the next step is to apply two coats (or enough to cover the green/purple foam completely) of your road colored paint. We used a mix of steel gray and khaki to achieve our concrete color and we advise you to experiment with mixing your road color on a piece of scrap foam before applying it to your diorama or layout.
We also mixed our road paint up in a resealable mason jar as we’re going to be creating a lot of road for our city and don’t want to have to keep re-mixing the paint and want to eliminate irregularities in matching up our concrete colors. Not that all the concrete will be the same color in a city, but for this stretch of road, we wanted it to match for a stretch.
Next, we go back over our two coats of paint with a sea sponge and add a VERY LIGHT peppering/speckling of white and a darker gray color from our road. This adds the effect of a poured concrete where you’d typically see darker and lighter areas inside the cured concrete.
Once each coat of paint is dry, it’s time to add lines (if you want). We cut a template to sponge on our center yellow line and keep the line length consistent. The line we cut into the cardstock was 1 foot wide and 6 feet long. This keeps the line length the same and prevents us from using a tape product to mask off a line, potentially peeling the existing road paint off. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Road painted and lines down, it’s time for us to weather the road and add some tire lines from the everyday wear that the road would experience!
This is a simple and fun part of the process for us, but we love weathering.
The key is to highlight the cracks, relief cuts, and any defects or wear in your road with a darker chalk. Then you go back and add your tire tread wear lines you’d see on any old road from constant traffic. This part of the weathering will look startling and too vivid. It’s okay though, we’ll fix it next!
To “dull” out your harsh dark weathering, we go back over the road with gray and white chalks which end up toning down your vivid and dark black weathering chalks for a smoother and more even looking old road!

[@manofthehour6856]

Thank you for posting this! I have been struggling for years on what the best materials would be for building a road / street. This is the perfect tutorial! Much appreciation for sharing this!

[@chantebrown9720]

Excellent video! I've been looking for a road tutorial. Thank you!

[@grantv2313]

It should be noted dimension wise, these are good dimensions for an older highway from say the 1930s. If you are modeling a more modern era such as after the 1960s, highways generally have 12 to 13 ft lanes now with 4, 8 or 10 ft paved shoulders, or just gravel. Center line skips are standard 10 ft long now on 40 ft centers, so 30 ft gaps. The gap between double yellow is generally 7 to 8”. Looks good. 👍🏻

[@Scottagram]

97 subscribers for a channel THIS good?

[@danpugatch]

Darnit now I will have to cover my plywood empire with foam! Great tutorial Brett. I could see this technique for making sidewalks too.

[@ragrabau]

Looks good, but if you see pictures of interstate highways (California comes to mind), there really isn't dark lines from the tires, but a line from the dropped oil from the engines.

[@WileysScaleModeling]

Thanks! we admit we might've gone a little darker on the tread lines, but we were trying to achieve this look: www.ebpaving.com/media/images/content/Case_Studies/Tracy_Road_Roller/DSC_0239.jpg & texturelib.com/#!/category/?path=/Textures/road/road The demonstration was mainly for the concrete and cracking, the tire wear was a little dark. Lightened it up with gray chalks to smooth out the harshness of it.

[@TheOriginalBadger]

Neither way is wrong. If you look at images of old concrete roads, you will see both "styles" of wear marks, and even a third possibility where there is just one wide line down the middle of the line from a combination of both rubber marks and dropped oil.

[@moisesbursztein2830]

Excelent comment. Almost every tutorial on concrete roads show tire marks when in relality those roads only have a darker shade down the center. Tire marks are appropiate in gravel and dirt roads. Regardless of the tire marks, the technique to make roads on foam surface is excellent and this defenetly will be my go to method.

[@TheyMakeItLikeThat]

This looks awesome! Very well done

[@robertsheldon4325]

Another great tutorial. Thank you.

[@robertsheldon4325]

In fact I love lithe idea of using some styrene as sidewalks and giving it some elevation.

[@docdimichele3003]

Nicely done, and I was about to put in roads for my town, Midway.

[@johnkelley9877]

Great tutorial! Thanks for sharing this.

[@harleynut1961]

Well done

[@ap70621]

The correct spacing for dashed lines is a 10 foot line and a 30 foot space.

[@WileysScaleModeling]

Thanks!

[@AndyCrawford_NorfolkWestern]

I don't get the black tire tracks, that's not what I'm used to seeing, I expect the wearing and lightening of the concrete in the wheel paths. I've seen this done quite a bit with foam, more often with foam core with a surface removed. I've seen some look pretty good in photo/video, but I never could get anything I was satisfied with in person. I've tried many things, plaster, spackle, etc., but I'm in love with Duram's Water Putty. I'll grant you it's harder to work with, literally as it's one of the hardest plasters I work with short of dental casting plaster. But it's the best results I've personally achieved. I've had pretty good luck with asphalt using grout into forms, just as would need with the plaster methods. Something I seen some modular guy do on a intermodal facility lot covering tracks, just use a dilute matte medium, ModPodge, or some other PVA like dilution to set it so it will get hard enough. Although, in my case I was heavier on the glue in the center, mostly just 50% IPA to set the shoulders with little glue, so I can crack and damage the edges of the roads as it's rural road surfaces. Just what works for me, my $0.02... Enjoyed the video, thanks for sharing...

[@WileysScaleModeling]

Thanks for the input. We might have gone a little too heavy on the dark tire lines, but I was basing it off a quick google image search of "old concrete roads" and images such as this: www.ebpaving.com/media/images/content/Case_Studies/Tracy_Road_Roller/DSC_0239.jpg Or what you'd see in old road texture libraries like this: texturelib.com/#!/category/?path=/Textures/road/road

[@AndyCrawford_NorfolkWestern]

HO Scale Customs I see that from that pic, what you’ve accomplished is pretty much aligned with that. The textures library is awesome, can’t believe I didn’t know about that. I’m fascinated with the idea of printing road textures out and putting some seal over that. I’ll give that a go. I do love the concrete I’ve done with Durham’s Water Putty, and I’ll have to put up a vid or share with you on Facebook. There’s a lot of ways to do this stuff, and I’m always keen to see new ideas as you share. Especially when they are as easy as using pink foam. Being the base of my layout, the closer I can get to that with a technique the less work I have to do. Again, thanks for sharing, I enjoy what you do, and especially the attention you share with other modelers. Ken Anderson is a friend, and he deserved every bit of attention you shined on his excellent modeling. Keep up the good work brother!

[@Jeff-Vader_head_of_catering]

@@WileysScaleModeling The image you used here looks like sun bleached asphalt, not cement. In the case of asphalt, you do tend to see tire rubber stains. Not so on cement freeways.

[@rbdamon2]

Excellent! How about one for Asphalt?

[@WileysScaleModeling]

We got our hands on some asphalt mediums and we're working on that next! Stay tuned!

[@Jeff-Vader_head_of_catering]

Very good techniques here! I love the cutting in of the cement breaks and cracks! But your concepts for cement highway/freeway road weathering is reversed. On cement highways, the dark sections are down the center of the lane of travel, from oil that drips from vehicle engines, not down the sides of the lanes from the tires. The tires actually wear down the cement causing that area of the cement where the tires hit, to be lighter than the the rest. If you wanted to get even more accurate, on the scale that you're using, you could use your index finger or pinky (depending upon your finger size), wrap sandpaper around your finger and sand slight grooves, loosely the size of your finger down the warn, travelled section of the cement where the tires hit.

[@WileysScaleModeling]

We did this video quite some time ago, so maybe we should put out an updated version after we've realized now that there might be some things we've done that could be done better

[@Jeff-Vader_head_of_catering]

@@WileysScaleModeling 👍 Your video still has some good techniques. If you revise it, please be sure to put in the original tips too!

[@Jeff-Vader_head_of_catering]

*EDIT It appears we are both correct! On newer cement highways/freeways, you will get the dark tire marks going down the lanes, as you have demonstrated in your video. On older freeways, you get the slight grooves where the tires have been going, but no longer show the black rubber from the tires, and the only darkened area is from oil drips down the center of the lanes, like I mentioned above. 😎👍

[@c.g.c2067]

nice

[@112Ishaan]

And how to make the white lines like in a European city or Yeah by Highway roads

[@lobilly]

You recommend the concrete from AK?

[@fernandorojas5197]

Fantástico 👌😃

[@WileysScaleModeling]

Thanks!

[@baswaijers7780]

Nice technique. How you you seal it in?

[@WileysScaleModeling]

We don't seal our work, but I know a lot of people do. We just leave them as is because some of the sealers we have seen or tried tend to lose some of the look we achieved. We just set our work in place and don't touch it much, never lost any weathering or detail over the years. But it's really just a preference.

[@TrainFanShorts]

can we use Styrofoam?

[@4449John]

Just saw this a short time ago and I loved it until the tire marks took over and sort or ruined the look. Maybe the folks on your railroad's highways are drifting fans I guess. I'd think centered oil marks, heaviest after any sort of dip or even expansion joint bump, might have been a bit more common; at least they are where I travel. Still, the basic concept and construction was great and will be used by this modeler, who drove God knows how many miles as part of his professional life over the past 40 years or so. Carry on.

[@WileysScaleModeling]

We realize afterwards that maybe the tire marks weren't the best. But that's how model building goes. We don't do that now on our main roadways now on the layout. Unless of course they're doing burnouts and drifting! 🤣

[@4449John]

@@WileysScaleModeling yeah, my layout is home to some serious outlaws on two as well as four wheels, so yeah, I totally get it. Cheers!

[@sustek4]

What kind of chalk do you use?

[@WileysScaleModeling]

It's just basic crafts store brand dry chalk pastel brand chalk, ground down into a dust. The pack we picked up from Michaels Craft Store for less than $10. Then we just mix what we need and create custom colors from our base set.

[@jamesblack449]

Have you ever made a road like an Interstate Highway Road?

[@jamesblack449]

I think if I made a road like this I'd use White lines instead of yellow