How to Model Tarmac around Complex Trackwork using Foam
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- This is probably the easiest method for modelling around complex trackwork. I have used card, styrene and just loose grout. This method is easy to cut and does not distort with damp like card (mine has swelled over the years causing clearance issues).
It's simple because you can just press it down on the trackwork and then cut along the impressions. None of those nasty gaps left when you try and measure the uneven and irregular areas. Easy. It comes in grey, it's easy to trim in situ if you need to with a sharp knife blade and it has a great texture - what's not to love!
The only downsides are that it does dent easily and solvent based products will cause it to distort ruining all your hard work. That means you need water based glues, fillers and paint.
Materials
Craft foam - check the size but mine is around 2mm thick from HobbyCraft. It comes in A3 and A4 sheets so you can avoid too many joints.
White Glue
Sharp knife (I use a #11 X-acto blade but any one will do). They do blunt relatively quickly especially if you are trimming in situ so be prepared to sway your blade is trimming is not going well. It's also easier to trim if there is a paint layer on it.
Acrylic putty - I used Deluxe Materials.
Index
00:17 Real World
00:50 Method
11:25 Final Result
12:08 Mini Kathys
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Wow, Kathy, it looks like you had your work cut out for you...no pun intended. You did an amazing job! Thanks for making this "paving" technique available to all of us on RUclips!
+ATSF Venta Spur Nscaler Thanks for the comment. It did take a long time as I had a lot of space to fill.
Hey Kathy, I'm having a fantastic time going back through all your videos! There super informative. And its great to see a foxy lady playing with trains!
Glad you enjoy the videos.
Hi Kathy, that is so good if that isn't tarmac then I don't know what is, it looks superb! grrrrreat, thank you.
Thanks Keith. That means a lot!
Kathy, thank you for sharing this. Found out about the foam about two weeks ago and I think I'm going to use that in the yard. Your demo has helped me make that choice. Glad you posted a video about this product and how you used it. Great stuff!!
Cheers! D. Muse
+David Muse Glad you found it useful. I do love how easy it is to use.
Great stuff Kathy, find your videos incredibly helpful for ideas and techniques I can transfer to my wargaming projects! The tarmac videos will be especially helpful for my new Walking Dead city board!
Wow, a Walking Dead city sounds awesome! Glad you like the videos and thanks for commenting.
Very impressed that girls are interested in models as well 😃 thanks for the tips!
Thanks! It’s a shame more girls don’t do it as it’s a great hobby.
Hello Kathy. I was on holiday in Lanzarote when I watched this video. I got back late last Saturday and today, Monday, I have rushed to the nearest Hobbycraft store, bought some foam and tried it. GREAT. Thanks for the tip, it's the best way I have tried. Regards Michael
I’m so glad you found it helpful and I hope you had a great holiday!
Great tip and a power of work (speeded up). Much easier, I think, than the slab of polyfilla (other fillers are available!) method. Cheers.
+davie maclean I'm not a fan of the slab of plaster as I just seem to end up gunking up flangeways and sanding a lot.
Thanks. Very helpful. I thought the moveable parts of the 'points' needed to have some focus because I'm not exactly clear how you did those but I'll run it again and check that out.
+SA ModelRail Tganks! I cut the foam around the turnouts/points with them thrown one way and then threw them the other way and trimmed. The trick is really working out where the flangeways are needed.
Another excellent video and hint. For those of us who model in n-scale, the 3 mm black is excellent for use in similar applications. In the US, Funky Foam and Silly Wink are the brand names I have used. I use Kato Unitrack and find the 3 mm is great under buildings that are track side and have loading docks. I brings the dock height to align with boxcar floor.
Thanks for that Roger - I'm sure that will be a great help to the US viewers.
Excellent! I will have to look for this type of foam here in the colonies. It's nice that you can translate points, sleepers, etc... for us. LOL
I hope it works in N scale. It looks a lot easier to work with than traditional methods.
+Tom Edwards It is an easy method and I can't think of any reason it won't work with N as long as the foam is thin enough.
Hey Kathy! Been watching your videos for a while now. Really glad you posted this as I am going to use foam for the base of a two stall engine house on my layout. Nice work as always! - Brian
+Landsburg & Great Western Railroad Thanks Brian, it should work nicely there.
I had no idea there were so many ways to make tarmac. This looks like a good method to use also! There are so many to choose from, now I don't know which one to pick
Whichever is easiest to find for you!
Interesting idea. Thanks for posting. Until I saw this, I was planning on using drywall mud. I noticed on your earlier tarmac video that the ground was resilient. Now I know why.
I'll have to look for a thinner sheet because my rail is code 55 spiked directly to the roadbed.
+mpeterll I think they sell foam in a number of widths so it's just finding one that suits your rail height. You can dent foam but in my experience, it springs back up after a while.
Beautiful work Kathy! 👍👌👏
+Duececoupe Thanks a lot!
Will try it, whenever I get around to do Milwaukee Road's Beer Line! 😉😄
+Duececoupe I love that railroad so I hope to see photos one day.
Kathy, love that railroad too, so much that I've got 60+ books about and by the railroad, an old map, a lantern, a 'bucket' of sorts, a cookbook by their famous chef, traveling brochures, got a full year of their company magazine, from the year I was born, 1969....
D&H and N&W is where all started for me, in quick succession followed LV, RDG, WM and GM&O....I've also got a soft spot for the NYNH&H which is up in your neck of the woods, New England, innit? 😉😄
Anyhoo, with a serious lack of space, I'm tooling around with a few rebuilds for my own freelance system, to keep my sanity intact, plus an occasional book here and there and some slides....btw, what are you doing here reading all this, away you go....don't have time for this, of you you go, time to make another video! 😉😄😂
That'll work!! Looks great! Add a few small distressed areas and potholes and cracks and weeds and the like.
Thanks Bill. The final details are yet to go on and you’re right, they make such a difference.
Great video Kathy... I will definitely use this method on my layout...
+Jason Ellis Glad you enjoyed it.
Tricky business but awful splendid, thx!
Hi Kathy! I just used the foam method for the first time. One mistake I made, and you do mentioned this on your video. I pull or as you said it, distorted the foam when gluing it and now I have a slight bubble. Will have to send the road crew. Cheers RT
+retrainrun Hope the road crew sort it out. Tarmac is rarely completely even so a few bumps generally don't worry me.
Hi Cathy, useful video, I like using this sort of closed cell foam, I notice that you are probably using low tack adhesive masking tape which I found is essential. Ordinary masking tape adhesive tends to fuse with the foam after a relatively short time. It can then ripple the foam when the tape is removed. Some viewers may not be aware of this, Jim
+freightuk Jim. Thanks for bringing that up. I never use "normal" masking tape do it's good to raise it for those who do
Great video, I'd like to see some trains running on that layout.
+joe So would I! I've a little more scenery to fix up and then it's just the time to get them out, check the weights and couplers and get them on.
Hi Kathy. Dave here. What I can't understand is how you model concrete tarmac cobble stones around point work without making the blades jam ? Loved the video
You have to leave enough space for the points to move and a flangeway for the wheels but otherwise, using foam, card etc is easier than plaster for avoiding gumming up the works.
Glad I just found this as I'm building a TMD and of course there will be paved roads. That hobby foam, is it also known as EVA foam as I have a huge amount of that for cosplay costume construction.
EVA foam would be perfect. It’s the same stuff but only a millimetre or so thick.
Very useful, never thought about useing foam will definitely try it. I would have like more on how you filled in round and in the points/turnouts. Also how would you go about doing rails if you want to put in a moving crane or two? Thinking of the Airfix/Dapol dock crane.
blame cosplay for more foam! It’s been fascinating though. I will be filling in between the rails in my micro layout which will be put later in the year.
@@KathyMillatt Thank you, I'll look forward to seeing more of your inspiring modelling. Wishing you a great New Year
nice tip....looks great too!!!!!!
Thanks a lot. It's so easy, I love it.
Nice technique!
+New Haven Rails Thanks!
Some times when the road crosses the track instead of putting tarmac down they will put down blocks of concrete with rubber seals ..... you can find them stacked sometimes too
That would be really interesting to model. Thanks for the comment.
Great video. thanks
+waltworld Thanks for commenting.
from another trade of i sometimes used a marker of a kind it could be black/white/red .. etc. what to remove or where we still miss a spot
to trace from one piece to another by pressing the two piece together
in this case chalk /soft pastel or something you wipe of the track again
thank you for your answer and enjoy the tour on the railroad :)
+Dennis Grosen carbon paper is another option if you want to go down that route.
Rather than carbon paper, which can be hard to find, you can put graphite from artist pencils on top of the rails, and allowing that to mark the foam.
Neat use of foam to migrate on from pure cobbles, which are a different level of pain.
I'm confused. All your prototype pictures show obvious double rail for the flange ways. But you seem to have completely ignored modelling those.
I’ve tried double flange elsewhere on street running but this is my dock area and with so many points, it’s nigh on impossible to do. With plaster, it’s helpful, with other infills, less so.
Kathy I am thinking about using foam for a street running area at our club layout, what has your experiance been with cleaning the track? I have heard some people say that is the problem with using card, as well as it warping but is that the same with the foam?
Regards Neil
+Neil Rogers you need to make sure the foam sits a little below the track height or you'll end up taking off all your careful paint job the first time you try and clean the track. That's the same with plaster or card I'm afraid. Foam doesn't seem to warp but I'll let you know properly after a few years. I'm more worried about it becoming brittle. My card has swollen over the winter with the damp air and lifted in some places. I ended up carving it all down. Foam doesn't do that but it does rise and fall with heat as it expands/contracts. If you have a fairly constant temperature then no worries.
Would this same procedure work for street running or would you change anything for roads?
+Contrajoe I would use the same technique for roads and I have used foam before.
hej Kathy niiiiice job :)but a tiny little but ... have you ever looked at form board its possible to get it both3mm, 5mm,10mm and maybe even thicker and in different Color as well I know architects use itto make mock up models of there drawingsand is relativ easy to cut ,glue and paint
I do use foam board a lot but what I like about this foam is that it dents when you press it on to the trackwork so it's easy to see where to cut. I guess that foam board could do that but I doubt it would be as easy.
Do you prefer foam to say card or styrene sheet? Because it’s flexible?
Yes and because it’s easy to cut and has a bit of give in it to fill gaps.
ya ... of course I should forget the old carbon paper ....:)
+Dennis Grosen I have!
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**.*..*...*....*.....*......*.......*........*.........* Wow ! Talk about coitus interruptus ! *.........*........*.......*.....*.....*....*...*..** Because Kath, I sure do hope the completed tarmac/wharf job, which, in some ways depicts 'street-running' too, to some degree, is shown in its entirety in a coming video !! (..and I'm betting it will..). Could have let camera go a few secs past 11:06, panning the entire supercalifragilisticex baladosis, gear-fab job, now in completion........... [please see title again]....Mark in L.A.
+Mark Harris. It will be once the details are on. Just finishing up those videos.
+Mark Harris Thanks for the compliments!
You so funny!
+Victoria Q 😄
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