We've Resurfaced!

 

Well we finally returned to working on the layout again at the weekend, after a four-week hiatus, and we are now about to turn our attention to the last part of the town  that needs landscaping.

However, before we started on that, we decided to cover with scatter the Metcalfe card tarmac that we had used underneath the supermarket and petrol station - see top picture. We had never been completely happy with the card here for the simple reason that it looked exactly like what it was - card! There were also some visible joins too which we wanted to hide so we decided that we would cover it with Peco PS-3 grey path scatter.

Now, in the past, we have had mixed results using scatter for road or tarmac. In the car park at Gunnmere, for instance, we achieved almost perfect results but, as this was done many months ago, we had forgotten exactly how we did this. Meanwhile the brewery, on the other hand, proved to be far less successful and is patchy with areas that are much darker than others.

Therefore, wanting to emulate the car park rather than the brewery this time around we proceeded with extreme caution and did a little bit at a time. First we brushed the card with diluted PVA glue and sprinkled the scatter on top and this gave us a dark, uneven finish, similar in appearance to some areas of the brewery. We then switched to using undiluted PVA and this gave us a far more even finish that was lighter too - perfect!

The next job was to pave beneath the supermarket and here we did revert to Metcalfe and their self-adhesive paving slabs (PO210). We had already used these to good effect beneath the Police Station so thought that they would also be suitable for the supermarket.

The final job was to add some trees and bushes to the curved embankment opposite the fuel terminal and, also, some smaller bushes to the front of the fence to said terminal. 

This corner is now as complete as any part of the layout can ever be described as such leaving us free to start covering up that horrible white area of the town.