12-12-2009, 11:31 AM
Ralph, Gary, thanks for your nice comments. If you want to use sanding paper for roads, here are a few tips that may help you. Use a stiff paint brush – the sanding paper will "eat up" a soft brush and you will end up having bristles all over the surface. I use artist’s acrylic paints and dilute them to the consistency of milk. It is difficult to spread thick paint evenly on sandinging paper. You will have to paint at least twice to achive the right color for your road. To speed up the process, you can use a hairdryer. Acrylic paints usually change their color a bit when they dry, but I never had such a drastic change in color as when painting black sanding paper. If you paint it light gray, it will turn much darker and bluer when it is dry. To get the color you see in my pics, I use lightly beige colored paint that does only contain a little black. I mix this color by using lots of white, a little raw sienna and only very little black. Try it out on a little piece of sanding paper, it is amazing how much the color is changing when it dries. To weather the roads I use a stiff paint brush with short bristles and drybrush the surface with very little black paint (use a cheap paint brush, the sanding paper will have it’s effect on the brush). If the brush is almost dry and only leaves marks on paper when you apply some pressure, then it is right for weathering the roads.
Kurt