Ground cover in the yard
Entry posted by JRamsden in Addleford Green Blog
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From my research it seems that a great deal of rural lines (perhaps some major ones too) would not have used proper ballast for sidings and smaller lines. Instead the substrate would be ash or just compacted earth, probably mixed with whatever was cheap and easily to hand. I really wanted to achieve this effect on Addleford Green and have been thinking about how I would do it for a long time.
Images of Hawkhurst's yard show that a lot of the sidings, particularly around the goods shed, were surrounded (almost buried in some cases!) in compacted earth. I decided to start by covering the existing ballast with a thin layer of Das Clay. I love this stuff! It's so easy to work with and doesn't stick to everything quite as badly as plaster or filler.
I started around the engine shed area, pushing small amounts of clay onto the board which had been treated with a thin layer of ordinary PVA. The aim was to just cover the sleepers and also to blend in the piece of card I had placed previously as the engine shed interior.
Happy with how this looked, I moved onto the sidings and carried out the same process. Das Clay dries reasonably quickly but remains workable for some time too. I found it useful to wet pieces of the clay in a pot of water, making them much easier to smooth down with a finger. Having ballast already laid made the clay go much further as it only had to coat the top.
In my infinite wisdom I decided that the surface of this "compacted" earth would have some texture. So I sprinkled on some sand with a mind to paint the whole thing once it had dried. This would be my undoing!
I popped along to B&Q and selected a few match posts of emulsion paint which looked like close facsimiles of dull earth tones. I picked out some darker colours for the engine yard and some greys for the road. Then I gave the whole thing a coat of each of the colours, starting with the darkest for each.
Doesn't look too bad, huh? Maybe a little dark on the earth colour, but that would soon be solved with another coat of a lighter brown dry brushed over the top.
Good heavens! That didn't work quite as I had planned. There were several issues:
1. The sand made dry brushing with emulsion paint quite difficult and didn't produce the effect I expected.
2. The second brown wasn't just a lighter version of the first, it was a completely different shade entirely and the two didn't look natural together. The road had fared better but now looked almost white.
3. The overall texture didn't look right at all, for the road or the sidings.
Scenic modelling guru Chris Nevard once said (and probably more often than that!) that modellers often concern themselves too much with texture when it's actually colour that really aids the look of realism. This project proves that theory. In fact, every time I've aimed to add some kind of texture to anything, it's always looked massively wrong somehow.
What to do now? I had two options:
1. Apply more Das Clay to eradicate the texture.
2. Apply some finely sieved earth powder over the top.
As my poor points had already endured clay, glue and paint, I felt even more clay and paint could spell disaster. So I went with option 2. Treemendus earth powder, finely sieved and sprinkled over dilute PVA. Removal from the rail heads and areas where wheel flanges passed through was essential.
It looks better when dry!
I put some of the buildings in place to see what the overall effect would be and I was pleased enough. The texture was better, although I think this was a case of it not needing to be simulated at all. The earth powder gave a pleasing earth colour and there was some natural variation which I'd have struggled to achieve with paints.
In my usual backwards fashion, I attempted a test piece of track after I had made my blunder! Half Das Clay and half earth powder, it showed that the Das Clay alone actually provided a nice enough looking random earth appearance and that the colour was in fact key. The colour I used has not shown up well on the photos below; it's a closer match than the pots I originally bought but much too pale. The earth powder received a coat of matt sealer which definitely affects the colour and makes it darker. I didn't repeat this step on the actual layout.
Next time I want this effect I will likely use only Das Clay and be more careful to mix up a more convincing earth colour, as I feel this will go a long way to solving the issue. I suspect that once buildings, weeds and details are added, much of the effect will be hidden anyway!
All for now,
Jonathan
Edited by JRamsden
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