Dirt roads

Wherever there are people, you'll find roads.  For all of human history many of those roads were dirt.  In order to get the maximum flexibility out of any roads I build they must, therefore, be dirt.  A couple of years ago, six, actually, I cut some wood out to be made into a river.  I never got any farther on the project and now I'm building the river into the tiles.  That left me with seven river sections which will work just fine for dirt roads.

Two road sections.

I started by taking a belt sander and beveling the edges.  This is much easier and faster than my old method, which involved much pain and a wood rasp.  Happily I found my belt sander this weekend while I was looking for tiling tools and supplies.  A double win on the hobby front, even if I'll have to spend a day next weekend laying tile.

Five more road sections.

Once the road sections were beveled I took them to the basement and slapped the textured gray paint on them.  I wasn't worried about the edges since they will be brown and do not need to have gravel and dirt on them.

The next step will be to paint them the same brown as the table then dry brush them up to a lighter shade.  I'll slap some sand and gravel on each edge and the center, put down some flock and static grass and, done.

These seven sections will allow me to build a straight road across the table.  I'll have to cut up some more to get curves, a T junction and some more straight sections to fill the whole table, when appropriate.