Cobbling the yard

The factory yard needed a cobbled surface, after discussing whether to use DAS clay Joshua decided on the Wills sheets, as I used on Awngate. Well I happened to have three sheets in stock (left over from Awngate no doubt) so they were cut to fit snugly around the buildings and track using paper templates. The thick Wills plastic was hard for an 11 year old to cut accurately, so I had to help a bit here.



The close-up above shows how we painted individual cobbles in a variety of shades - I think we had 5 variations of colour. It takes a little while, but the results are worth it. A thin wash over the lot tones them together and fills the courses between them.



A look underneath shows how the sheets are joined (with off-cuts). A strip of kerb edging has been attached front middle too. The odd shapes fit around the buildings, and pieces of thick card are used to pack the plastic up to just below the rail height. This means thinning the plastic along the edges of the track to clear the sleepers and chairs - another tedious job.



Finally fitted in place the cobbles look the part and start to set the scene. The brick-paper on the backscene fills any gaps between buildings.