tramcar trev
all manner of mechanical apparatus...
I've been stuffing around with road surfaces to imitate asphalt..... we were discussing the topic a while back on the forum....
I have got to the stage where it looks reasonably realistsic. My method is; Paint the surface with bitumen paint, the slow drying stuff. Then go over it while still wet with sand delivered via a flour sifter. I got my sifter for $5 in a $2 shop
The trick is to get the blend of sand right. I have grey sand but the colour is too uniform so I added a bit of black oxide and some cream beach sand, a bit of experimenting was needed the first "blend" was too dark but this looks OK. I sifted the sand with some fine stainless steel food strainers I also got from $2 shops before blending to get out bits of foreign material.
Apply a coat of sand around 3mm - 1/8" thick then using an clean paint roller or a dowel do what a steamroller does and press the sand into the paint. Allow to dry. Then using a clean vacuum cleaner ( clean if you want to recycle your sand) suck up any loose sand and there will be lots of it but work gently with the brush attachment and the results speak for themselves. You can patch up and though its best to do the entire bit of street at once you can start and stop but feather the edge so you don't get a hard join... The finished result is only around 1mm thick but it depends on the thickness of the coat of paint you apply. I used a small throw away roller ( from $2 shop) and that gave a stipples surface which came out well... The last pic is from about 3" away.
The colour should be permanent and as there will be no vehicles actually running on it the surface should last some time, indefinatley if indoors.....
I have got to the stage where it looks reasonably realistsic. My method is; Paint the surface with bitumen paint, the slow drying stuff. Then go over it while still wet with sand delivered via a flour sifter. I got my sifter for $5 in a $2 shop
The trick is to get the blend of sand right. I have grey sand but the colour is too uniform so I added a bit of black oxide and some cream beach sand, a bit of experimenting was needed the first "blend" was too dark but this looks OK. I sifted the sand with some fine stainless steel food strainers I also got from $2 shops before blending to get out bits of foreign material.
Apply a coat of sand around 3mm - 1/8" thick then using an clean paint roller or a dowel do what a steamroller does and press the sand into the paint. Allow to dry. Then using a clean vacuum cleaner ( clean if you want to recycle your sand) suck up any loose sand and there will be lots of it but work gently with the brush attachment and the results speak for themselves. You can patch up and though its best to do the entire bit of street at once you can start and stop but feather the edge so you don't get a hard join... The finished result is only around 1mm thick but it depends on the thickness of the coat of paint you apply. I used a small throw away roller ( from $2 shop) and that gave a stipples surface which came out well... The last pic is from about 3" away.
The colour should be permanent and as there will be no vehicles actually running on it the surface should last some time, indefinatley if indoors.....
