I surfaced the road leading into the lumber shed with fine grained ballast from Woodland Scenics. It's hard to tell from the photo, but I did weather the surface with thin washes of browns and black to tone down its colour. I think I'll need to have another go because it doesn't look quite weathered enough.
At this point I'm going to set this base aside now that basic scenicking is done and move onto creating the next one, as well as buying and creating the various detail items these things will need.
That's a nice green.
ReplyDeleteAs for 'clean' gravel, I remember watching a ballast 'cleaning' train at work. The dirty ballast was bright and 'clean' while the 'cleaned' ballast was dingy and dusty. When I asked my grandfather about this, he explained that it really isn't about being clean as in washed, but clean as in free to settle and lock into place without silt and sediment at the base. The ballast cleaning train removes the silt and redeposits the gravel. Rain washes all the silt down to the bottom of the profile where it creates a potential for a washout, making the whole track and ballast above slide off in a heavy downpour or flood. Whereas ballast that has been cleaned locks together and is free-draining. The number one rule of the right-of-way - drainage!
I suppose gravel roads have a similar problem but without track and the pounding weight of trains above. Still, in rainy areas the gravel will look 'cleaner' than in dry, dusty locales. All this to say I think it looks pretty good, but weather-away until it looks right to you. It will be a fine setting for Moore's models.
Thanks for the information! I didn't know any of that. Since the diorama year is around 1900, so it's mainly horse and wagon traffic, maybe the only extra 'weathering' needed are some horse droppings :-)
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