Hellish Highway

While working on expanding the roads on the layout, I ran into a big headache! In this post I am going to fill you in on my past mistake with the roads, how I went about fixing them, and how to solve the problem I had!

The first time I began construction on the roads on my N scale layout I looked and looked to try and find lane widths. I searched Wikipedia and spent a while reading through the vast information they had about lane widths for the U.S. Highway department, single lane roads, and the Autobahn in Germany. I finally came across some info that said country lane roads can be as small as 9ft. So, I went with that and tried making my roads roughly 18 ft. wide. Well, when they were done I did not like how narrow the roads were, especially the ones that were going to have higher volumes of traffic. The other problem I had with the roads was that I sanded all of them as flat as could be. This caused problems with trying to add Sculptamold because the compound would easily get on top of the road... So I had to fix them!

My goal for the new road: wider, thicker lanes. I started off again by trying to find better info on lane widths in the U.S. I had not realized that on the package for Woodland Scenics' paving tape there were measurements for HO and N scale road widths, highway lanes, and sidewalks! I need to learn to read directions...

Once getting all the measurements marked out in pencil, I was ready to place down the paving tape and masking tape. I like to use a lot of masking tape along the paving tape, Smooth It can get really messy.

While applying the Smooth It I realized I did not have enough. Using roughly 2 cups, there were still a few holes that needed filled in. So, I decided to test out Plaster of Paris. When I was done I turned on the de-humidifier on the A/C and waited for it to dry.

After roughly 24 hours, I began peeling back the tape. I noticed, however, that the pavers tape was very difficult to get off any spots that had left over plaster or sculptamold. I tried many different ways to scrape the tape off, but nothing worked that well. When I was almost done I decided to Google why it wouldn't come off. I found someone else that had the same problem and contacted Woodland Scenics to remedy the situation. Woodland Scenics replied to him and said rubbing alcohol would help release the adhesive. Using a dropper, I applied some alcohol to the leftover tape, and a couple seconds later it came right off!

Now was the time to get dirty and sand down all the excess. I was worried that the Plaster of Paris would be difficult to sand down with the 220 grit sandpaper. It actually sanded down quite easily! So I think for my next road project I will try and use only Plaster of Paris. With the sanding complete, the last thing to do was make room for the train wheels to get through. Using a medium sized blade, I made a few scores by the rail. The width required to get the wheel through was about 1mm. Anything smaller than that caused the car to jump the track. Now that the road is all done, it is time to redo the sculptamold!

Thanks for reading everyone! I hope this helps you in creating your amazing layout. Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE below and FOLLOW me on Instagram and Pinterest! I post daily railroad or model train related pics. Please leave a comment down below if you have any questions or shoot me an email.