Tuesday, October 01, 2013

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.

7 comments:

  1. Those look like they will work just fine and using the textured paint as a base coat is a great idea. I have some concrete paint that would be perfect for that.

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    1. It gives a good texture for dry brushing, which will be the next step after I glue down some sand on the sides and center. The paint will probably end up working better on the roads than on the table top as a whole.

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  2. Table is looking good. A suggestion would be to gorilla tape the edges. The edges take the most abuse and will chip away over time. Gorilla tape stops that. You could put that cement over the tape where it overlaps the surface.

    Have you ever seen my tables that Lee and I built?

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    Replies
    1. That's a good idea Nick. I was just going to paint the sides but the tape seems like a better way to protect them. I have not seen your tables.

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  3. Hello AHunt - sorry, I don't actually know your first name, but would you mind dropping me a line at bestbandis AT yahoo DOT co DOT nz when you get a moment? I'd like to ask your permission to repost elsewhere a particularly fine comment you left on my blog some time ago. Thanks very much, Aaron

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I sent you an email. Let me know if you don't get it please.

      Delete
    2. Yes, got it thanks, and sent a reply to you as well.

      Delete

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