Building dirt roads

Having already applied the basic groundcover and the ballast, I started ‘paving’ some n scale roads. As I envisioned the town as being rustic, I wanted the scenery to reflect that and chose to make a dirt road as opposed to asphalt.

I first started building up the shoulders around the crossing by shaping some sifted dirt with a palette knife. Once I was satisfied with the slope, I misted the dirt with wet water and applied diluted 50/50 water/white glue. I next brushed on a thin coat of white glue the tops of the roads, and then carefully sifted fine dirt over top of both the shoulders and the road tops. I again misted the dirt with the 50/50 to encourage the glue to soak into all the dirt.

When I examined the results the next morning, I was disappointed to find that the dirt had not returned to its original light colour, but had dried much darker, and wet looking! Unlike ballast, dirt doesn’t dry to its original colour. Discouraged, I vacuumed up all the loose dirt, and applied a coat of light tan paint atop the road top and shoulders, and again sifted dirt over the paint. This time, I also used a roll of masking tape as a roller and packed the dirt down by gently rolling the tape back and forth.

The next day, I vacuumed up all the loose dirt and then proceeded to scrub the surface of the road with my finger to loosen any stray particles, as well as smooth the surface. I vacuumed us the excess, and this time was pleased to find the road now closely matched the original colour of the dry dirt. As a precaution, I sprayed everything with a few light mists of Testor’s Dullcote. (I made sure they coats were light ‘ I didn’t want to darken the dirt again!