{"id":138,"date":"2022-06-20T18:19:23","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T18:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/perfectweb\/submitcustom\/wordpress\/?p=138"},"modified":"2022-08-30T18:33:48","modified_gmt":"2022-08-30T18:33:48","slug":"how-to-make-a-parking-lot-base","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/websitedesignmarket.com\/projects\/submitcustom\/wordpress\/how-to-make-a-parking-lot-base\/","title":{"rendered":"How to make a parking lot base"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have had several requests for a how-to-do article on making bases and parking lots for the buildings, so here is how I made the base for the CVS Pharmacy.<\/p>\n

My model railroad is under construction, so I can not build the base on the layout at this time. But I have made a 1:1 printout from my planning software (3rd<\/sup>\u00a0Planit,\u00a0www.trackplanning.com<\/a>) so I can measure exactly where I want it and the space I have available. I decided to build it on 2 layers of foam board (\u00bd\u201d insulation foam board from Lowe\u2019s) to make it sturdier.<\/p>\n

I outlined the available space on the foam with a Sharpie marker and positioned the building where it would look good with ample room around it for parking lot and drive-thru. Then I cut it with a hobby knife.<\/p>\n

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The concrete slab is made from 0.04″ \/ 1mm styrene sheets. I have some big 12×48″ sheets that I cut to length. It was not wide enough, so I added a narrow piece to get to the correct width. The joint will be “hidden” as one of the expansion joints in the concrete.<\/p>\n

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The curbs are made from Evergreen Styrene Strips # 154 (0.06×0.08″ \/ 1\u00bdx2mm) and glued on with Plastruct Plastic Weld. I used a steel ruler to make sure they are straight.<\/p>\n

I glued the styrene sheet to the foam board with white glue. When the glue had set, I cut the slopes around the parking lot with a hobby knife and sanded the surface nice and smooth with 80 grit sandpaper.
\nI made the base and sidewalk close to the building from a sheet of 0.08″ \/ 2mm styrene, and scribed grooves to simulate the joints in the concrete in a 1″ \/ 25mm pattern. I also scribed grooves on the parking lot in a 3″ \/ 106mm pattern to simulate the expansion joints in the big slab.
\nYou can get a wide selection of scribing and “grooving” tools from MicroMark<\/p>\n

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If you look closely, you can see the expansion joints on the picture below.<\/p>\n

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Before painting the parking lot, I added some concrete car-stops from BLMA Models.<\/p>\n

First, I painted the yellow and blue lines that separates the parking spaces with a 1\/8″ \/ 3mm brush on the white plastic. Each parking space is 1.2″ \/ 30mm wide and 2\u00bd” \/ 60mm long. When the paint had dried, I masked the lines with 0.08″ \/ 2mm wide and 2\u00bd” \/ 30mm long tape.<\/p>\n

Then I sprayed the whole base with gray primer (Floquil makes a 3 oz. spray can) and brush painted 3 coats of Woodland Scenics Top Coat Concrete. If you have an airbrush, you can also use Floquil Concrete or Aged Concrete. When the paint had dried, I removed the masking tape, leaving nice and sharp dividing lines.<\/p>\n

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Before starting the scenery process, I glued the street signs to the base.
\nTo make the grass surrounding the parking lot, I brushed on a layer of white glue and sprinkled a thin layer of fine sand on the wet glue. The sand prevents the ground foam from running off the slopes. Then I applied diluted white glue (1 part glue to 3-4 parts water and a few drops of dish detergent) with a needle point bottle. You can also use an eyedropper. I used the diluted white glue because I had it already mixed, but you can also use Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement which comes ready-to-use.<\/p>\n

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Onto the wet sand I sprinkled a good layer of “Earth Blend” ground foam. Then I carefully applied more diluted glue, making sure that the foam was completely soaked.<\/p>\n

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Onto the wet ground foam I sprinkled a finishing layer of “Grass Blend” foam and applied some more diluted glue to soak it. Then I let it dry completely (leave it overnight). When I was done sprinkling foam, I brushed any excess foam away from the parking lot with a dry and clean paintbrush.<\/p>\n

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When the grass had dried the next day it was time to plant the bushes around the parking lot. For bushes I used small pieces of Woodland Scenics Fine Leaf Foliage which looks very real.<\/p>\n

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I used a small screwdriver to punch holes in the “ground” and planted the bushes using a small drop of Scenic Glue. The Scenic Glue is white but dries to an invisible clear and flat.<\/p>\n

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The only thing left was placing the building on the base and decorate it with some cars.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have had several requests for a how-to-do article on making bases and parking lots for the buildings, so here is how I made the base for the CVS Pharmacy. My model railroad is under construction, so I can not build the base on the layout at this time. But I have made a 1:1 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":134,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/websitedesignmarket.com\/projects\/submitcustom\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/websitedesignmarket.com\/projects\/submitcustom\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/websitedesignmarket.com\/projects\/submitcustom\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/websitedesignmarket.com\/projects\/submitcustom\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/websitedesignmarket.com\/projects\/submitcustom\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/websitedesignmarket.com\/projects\/submitcustom\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":819,"href":"https:\/\/websitedesignmarket.com\/projects\/submitcustom\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions\/819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/websitedesignmarket.com\/projects\/submitcustom\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/websitedesignmarket.com\/projects\/submitcustom\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/websitedesignmarket.com\/projects\/submitcustom\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/websitedesignmarket.com\/projects\/submitcustom\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}