I thought recently that I had read about using sandpaper for ground cover? painted of course. I am ready to build my staging/yard and it will be on a 8' section of 2" foam. The rest of the RR will be PECO track, but this part I am doing with KATO unitrack. The only structure will be an engine house for two switchers that I have. Under the yard is my 'work' bench.
Barry- I recall many years ago, that sandpaper was used by some people to simulate roadbed under tinplate trackage. The ballasts and adhesives we have now seems to have displaced the sandpaper idea. What program did you use for your layout 3D views? BoxcabE50
We used to be able to buy rolls of sand paper (not emmory cloth) which we glued to Tru-Scale wood roadbed. It was available in various colors from black, gray, light tan down to dark reddish brown. By tearing the edges, ti looked more to scale than the loose ballast that was available then. (The ballast grit back then actually measured around 6" to 8" per grit! We used a grit that sized out around 2" to 3" which looked fine in closeup photos. We did not paint the sandpaper, so it looked more real than when painted.
I am using 3rd PlanIt software. In 3D view there is an option to save the file as a TIFF file, then in Frontpage XP I change it to a JPEG file. Back to the original question, should I then just use plaster cloth to cover the entire foam ,then glue down the kato track? This part of the layout is separate from what will be the main layout.
Barry - I haven't used it for ground cover, yet. But, I am thinking about taking a very fine sandpaper for use as stucco. (Painted, of course!). Just can't help but to think that the way the sandpaper will diffuse light will make it look a lot like what I am striving for. --Joseph
Plaster cloth should do very well for adding texture, painting, etc. I've never been much on gluing track down. have always let the ballast hold it in place. Which of course is not needed with Kato track. It seems as though there will always come changes in the original concept, or perhaps a need to do some maintenance. If glued, unless it's easily loosened by a solvent of some type, future alterations can be a bear. Just something to consider. BoxcabE50
I have found no need to glue down the Kato track. Once snapped together, mine has not moved at all. There also have been many changes that I have made and if I had glued it down, would have been alot harder to do. Try setting all your track first and run your trains for awhile and then decide if you need to glue it down.
I have seen an article where sticky back sandpaper (very fine grit) was used as auto road surface. I guess you could use it to simulate any black top surface (roads and parking lots). From the photos I saw, if you add the road dividing stripes and weather it, it looks pretty nice.
Fine grit sandpaper can be used for roofs on industrial buildings or even homes, as some roofs have small rocks on them (haven't seen that lately now that I think about it, but they are out there).
Barry , do you plan on raising the level of the ground between the tracks of your yard to hide the height of the Kato roadbed? I did that on my switchyard and it was quite a chore, but the system I used worked okay and it also helped simpify the ground cover problem. I can send you some photos off Trainboard on how I did that, if you are going that route. While some people suggest that you don't need to glue down Kato Unitrack, I find it necessary to do so to keep the top of the rails level at the unijoiners. I also glue the Unitrack down to the deck in the middle of each track section. Hot glue works fine gluing Unitrack to orange styrofoam or plywood and it's easy to remove the track if required by cutting under the hot glue with a box cutter knife. I have long straight track sections in my yard and found that I was continually straightening the track until I finally glued it down. Aside from using sandpaper as ground cover, painting it and using it for stucco on R.R. stations sounds like a neat idea.
