Dirt Roads from Caulking

[Wirelizard]

We had some leftover brown paintable caulking from Burgundavia's scenery tile project (which he's never written up and posted about, lazy git...) so I grabbed some to try and make dirt road pieces with.

They turned out quite well, so far:


I made three batches working on a heavy ziplock bag with a scrap piece of cardboard inside it, which worked nicely. Squeeze the caulking out in roughly the shape you want the road piece to be, shape it (more scrap cardboard for highly sophisticated sculpting tools) then ignore it overnight and you can peel it off the ziplock.

Do NOT try this with saran wrap (plastic kitchen wrap); the caulking WILL bond to the wrap. This isn't the end of the world, but it's easier when the finished pieces just peel off. The heavier plastic of a ziplock bag works nicely.

I've given one the small piece lower right a dirt brown wash; the rest will get that this weekend and maybe some drybrushing; I might do a bit of green flocking along some edges too.

Barring someone picking one of the pieces up and tearing it, they seem pretty strong and should stand up to gaming wear and tear well. They've got enough weight to them to conform to terrain and not curl up either, it seems.

[Burgundavia]

Hey look, I recognize that car. Almost as if both Wirelizard and myself forgot all but one vehicle at our houses when we were working on these projects elsewhere.

As for the scenery tile projects, I have no finished pictures, but there are a few in my flickr stream. Which I will link to on Monday when I get around to re-upping my pro account. Grr...

[Jules]

A similar method to mine for manufacturing.  I like to work some grit in as well to add more texture.  The only down side with this stuff is heat Mine have to be kept flat and away from anything heavy when its hot or they dent badly.  The viscosity is temperature dependant and never seems to set finally.

[Wirelizard]

Right, something else I've just learned: caulking sticks to the printed label parts of ziplock bags. Several more of my road pieces now have plastic undersides, which was not intentional. A few also now have potholes, also not intentional, which I might patch with a dab more caulking when I do the next round.

So, build your road pieces on the blank, unlabelled side of your ziplock bag. And not on plastic wrap.

I shall, at some point this week whilst using up the last of the caulking in one final batch of roadmaking, take some WIP photos. An illustrated tutorial is likely, after that. It's an easy technique, although I've discovered a few pitfalls like the printed-label bit.

I'm up to about 4-5' of straight(ish) road, three turns and three intersections (crossroads, Y, and T intersections). That's enough for most of our gaming, but there's caulking leftover, so I'll keep going until the tube runs dry.

[Furt]

I use caulking for my roads as well, but only to raise the gutters.

I use mounting board as a base which is flexible and strong.

You can see them here.

http://adventuresinlead.blogspot.com/2010/11/chases-rescue-part-ii.html

[Wirelizard]

OK, time for one of those awesome "divided by a common language" questions: "caulking" in North America is "mastic" in the UK, right? Is "caulking" understood to mean "daft colonial word for mastic", generally?

Attempting to make a tut as universal as possible here[1], please help.




[1] Keeping in mind that I'm a unilingual Anglophone, please. I speak Canuckian English, eh? I can order beer politely in half a dozen western European languages. Beyond that, I'm linguistically useless. 

[Burgundavia]

For accuracy's sake, here is a Home Depot link to the exact stuff I purchased for my mats (and Wirelizard is now using for these roads):
http://www.homedepot.ca/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CatalogSearchResultView?D=941852&Ntt=941852&catalogId=10051&langId=-15&storeId=10051&Dx=mode+matchallpartial&Ntx=mode+matchall&N=0&Ntk=P_PartNumber

[Silent Invader]

Excellent! 

Nice idea and thanks for sharing.    

I have mastic (aka caulking) to hand and it seems that it could make some nice relocate-able pathways for between houses.  One question though and in case you'e experimented, do you think it could take sand while wet.... maybe a loose scatter then pressed in?  I ask because my existing track surfaces are sand based and I'd want this to blend in with them.  Cheers.  

[Burgundavia]

Excellent! 

Nice idea and thanks for sharing.    

I have mastic (aka caulking) to hand and it seems that it could make some nice relocate-able pathways for between houses.  One question though and in case you'e experimented, do you think it could take sand while wet.... maybe a loose scatter then pressed in?  I ask because my existing track surfaces are sand based and I'd want this to blend in with them.  Cheers.  

It holds flocking half decently, although I did add more white glue (watered down) afterwards. Alternatively you could use some sort of spray adhesive. One challenge with the white glue is that you can get water rings, as the caulking repels water rather than absorbs it like most other materials (paint, foam, etc.) and thus it pools on the surface.  So yes, I imagine it could hold sand.

BTW, the stuff has the consistency of icing and sticks like icing to anything used to mold it. A very different material than I have ever worked with before, but not in a bad way. I recommend you try out small pieces and experiment before committing to a giant project that may not work. Also, your mastic/caulk may be of a different composition to mine, so mileage may vary.

[Schogun]

This may be another "compound" to try:

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To-Make-Your-Own-Sugru-Substitute/#step1

Silicone caulk + corn starch. Looks to be less sticky than regular caulk.

[Furt]

I have mastic (aka caulking) to hand and it seems that it could make some nice relocate-able pathways for between houses.  One question though and in case you'e experimented, do you think it could take sand while wet.... maybe a loose scatter then pressed in?  I ask because my existing track surfaces are sand based and I'd want this to blend in with them.  Cheers.  

I have placed larger kitty litter into places and the majority stuck.

[Sheerluck Holmes]

I used a similar method, only using tape as the backing, as show in this thread: http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=14305.0

[Silent Invader]

Thanks for the tips. 

[Silent Invader]

I had a go at this using some brown glazing mastic that I had to hand. 

I drew the outlines of the pieces I wanted onto a plastic refuse bag, smeared on the very sticky mastic, patted on beach sand then pressed in wheel ruts etc.

As it was quite thick, I left it for about a week to cure then tipped off the excess sand, cut to shape and peeled of the plastic bag backing.  The sticky nature of the mastic left some 'potholes' I didn't want and these were filled with sand adhered with superglue.

All-in-all a very practical and pleasing result.  Thanks to Wirelizard for sharing and for the inspiration. 
 
BTW these tracks are for my terrain base boards that have inset roads but need the occasional additional track for a village or farm.

[Wirelizard]

As it was quite thick, I left it for about a week to cure then tipped off the excess sand, cut to shape and peeled of the plastic bag backing.  The sticky nature of the mastic left some 'potholes' I didn't want and these were filled with sand adhered with superglue.

How thick did you put it that it still hadn't cured in a week? 

The pieces I've done are usually cured enough to peel off the plastic in 6 hours or so, maybe overnight at worst, then another couple of hours upside down to let a few sticky spots on the underside cure. The thickest I've done is maybe 1/8th of an inch, at most; thinner than that is still more than strong enough for use and has enough weight to flatten itself out nicely.