Highways and Parking Lots

After studying the various approaches to modeling highways and parking lots, I chose the family of "Road System" products from Woodland Scenics.

I used the "Paving Tape" to lay out the edges of all the roads and parking lots. Then I mixed the "Smooth-it" material that forms the roadbed. This material is then poured into the "forms" created by the paving tape outlines.

After about 12 hours the road surface was hard and I removed the paving tape. With just a little light sanding to remove the rough edges, I was ready to apply the surface of the roadway.

Here I chose the "Asphalt Top Coat" because I liked the dark color and thought it more closely matched the rural feel of the layout in the 1950's of northern Arizona.

Once the asphalt had dried I was able to apply the highway lines and other traffic markings. To accomplish this I used colored pencils and with the aid of both a straight edge and french curve, I penciled in all the yellow and white lines.