Good Size For Stone

[Ztrains]

I've been looking for some size ranges for cut stone, something that would have been used for abutments in the 1930s -1950s, give or take. Mostly a Northeast-style. I'm looking for height and width dimensions.

Just eyeballing it from online photos I've come up with an average height in the neighborhood of 20 inches. That might make the width from 3' - 4' for a single stone.

Sound about right?

Thanks
John
www.ztrains.com

[Dave Schneider]

I did a quick calculation for a stone 20x18x36 inches. At an average density for granite that is about 1300 lbs of rock. Not sure if you are looking at hand laid stone for your application, but that seems a bit large. Hope this helps....probably not, but true scale stone/brick is hard to achieve in Z and N.

Best wishes, Dave

[Chris333]

I had an abutment down the street measured up a long time ago, but lost the info.

In Z I like the resin stone sheets that are on e-bay. You have to cut up and rearrange to get an abutment though.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Field-Stone-Retaining-Wall-Z-Scale-/370410267958?cmd=ViewItem&pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item563e2c2536

[Ztrains]

Thanks Guys,

After looking at a ton of photos, hoping to find something in an abutment photo I could use as a height reference, I came across this image:

http://nebrownstone.com/images/Gallery/abutment2.jpg

An old abutment now in a neighborhood. Since the steps are right next to it and figuring each step riser is about 7", I guess the height of each stone to be just around 20" high.

I figure I can cheat a bit and go a bit higher, maybe .10" high.

I've been wanting to try some cut stones on my own and these dimensions should do the trick, though I have to admit that eBay stone is tempting!

John
www.ztrains.com

[Chris333]

The ebay stones are 13.2" x 36.5" in Z scale

[Ztrains]

Thanks on those measurements. I'm afraid I'm already into the styrene form for these abutments and my scale stone test went pretty well... hope to have these new abutments ready in a couple of days.

John
www.ztrains.com

[David K. Smith]

Thanks on those measurements. I'm afraid I'm already into the styrene form for these abutments and my scale stone test went pretty well... hope to have these new abutments ready in a couple of days.

Yikes, you don't waste any time! There's no end of stone abutments around the area I work, but I didn't even get a chance to go out and do any measuring or photography. Next time, wait 24 hours if you can! (winkies)

[Chris333]

Where is that link to the guy who used snapped off floor tiles. He had walls-a-go-go.

[Chris333]

John,
Did you ever come up with a way to make stones?  I tried the floor tile method. When you snap them off the edge looks just like sand stone, but when I stack them up and make a wall they don't look so good.

Chris

[Ztrains]

Chris,

I went with a technique I saw on an HO (maybe larger) forum. I took an impression in flattened clay from a rock face, baked the clay to harden then cut scale height strips, then cut those strips to length. Added them to a styrene shape with a bit of CA. Made one mold but the following casting looked a bit cold, too blocky with cut lines that were too clean.

I'm just going over one of the casts, rounding things out and doing a bit of aging with an X-Acto tip, chipping off bit of rock here and there.

I really won't be sure until color is applied but it does have an old look to it I think. That original clay impression should work well. There's a photo on my homepage of the latest casting.

www.ztrains.com

John

[Chris333]

I think I remember see that way before using sculpt clay. Looks better than mine. I just tried again, but this time I sanded the sides so the blocks sat closer together.


Bottom is my first try. Looks better in photos than in real life I guess.

The tiles are 1/8" thick and 12 x 12" I think they are made of some sort of asphalt.

[Ztrains]

I like that look... height is close to what I cut too and well within the range for these stones. Did you score the tiles prior to snapping them?

John

[Chris333]

There was a blog posted here on The Railwire a while back that I can't find. That is where I got the idea.

What I did was score the tiles 1/4" apart on both sides then snapped them off with a pair of pliers. But these edges were then sanded pretty smooth. Now you have 1/4" wide x 12" strips and use the wire cutters on the pliers to chop the strips into about 3/8" long pieces. The sanded edges butt up against each other, this also make all the stones the same width (1/4").  After I just took these photo I thought I'd try a whole abutment. I'll take a pic once it's painted up.

I used an old box of tiles I found at work, who know what they are made of now.

[Ztrains]

Thanks for that description... I may give that method a try too.

One thing I've wondered about but haven't found a 100% accurate method for... stone work as in the Chooch N scale pieces:

http://www.choochenterprises.com/9830_size-1024.jpg

I don't believe this is molded from a natural source so there's a specific technique... just not sure what! Actually after looking at a lot of actual abutment stone, most of it is a good deal smoother and has less relief than the Chooch pieces but... it's the principal of the thing... I want to know how Chooch does that stone work!

John





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[Chris333]

I have those Chooch piers, but the end abutments had to be made from their matching wall sections. You can see at the beginning of this vid.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW3cdNvKnR4
Whole bridge here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eobS2xqPSjw
It sucks cutting/grinding resin into a million pieces to get stepped wing walls.

These were made by just drawing on pink foam and pressing a rough round file into it.

Not the best though.

Here is the abutment I just made:

Some of the big gaps were filled in with paint. Looks good enough for now.