Bridge Piers and Abutments

Happy New Year!

As with the color of the bridge, I wasn't sure what I wanted to use for the bridge piers?

I had several of the Chooch cut stone piers and abutments that I'd been saving for these bridges, but when it came time to use them I found it was going to be a bit difficult to get them to work.  The main problem was the offset of the ledge and trying to line them up so the track was level.

I was told to make and use concrete versions, this would be easier since I could "make" them fit the bridges.  So I sat about looking for some samples to go off of.  I found one of a Z scale abutment which I thought look very nice and it gave me a starting point.  It also gave me some ideas.

After a few quick measurements, I grabbed the bridges and ran over to my shop.  Once there I scrounged up some scraps of 1/4" and  3/4" MDF.   Within a few minutes I had a simple design for the Truss bridge sketched out,  A couple of quick cuts on the saw and I had the pieces ready to glue together.

A few minutes later I had the abutments and piers ready for the Deck bridge.

Then I set them up so I could test the fit of the bridges.

The next thing was to paint them but before I did I wanted to add a little character to the Truss bridge abutments.  I added a small section of .040" styrene just to give it a bit of relief.  It kind of reminds of a simplified Art Deco look.  Once it was dry I took my #11 Exacto blade and started chipping away at the MDF in hopes of giving the looks of chipped and worn cement.

Next I was going to sealed the MDF with some yellow carpenters glue but my bottle had dried up. Looking around, the first thing I found was the bottle of Modge Podge I used for the lake in Malvern.

I smeared some on and let it dry.  Instead of sanding them smooth, I let them stay rough in hopes of giving them a rough concrete texture.  Then I found a bottle of light gray paint, the cheap acrylic stuff.

This looked to be a little too light but I planned on covering them with a black wash and finally some weathering powders.  So starting out lighter is better.  

I used a black wash made from Lamp Black artist oil thinned with Mineral spirits. After the wash had dried I started to brush on some Bragdon "Ol Yeller" powder to tone down the gray.  Next I grabbed three colors of Pan Pastels to simulate the rust and dirt.  I started out with the lighter color first brushing it on in a wider pattern, as I grabbed the next darker color I narrowed the pattern with s smaller brush.  When applying the darkest of the colors I used the largest of the Micro Brushes so I could make the darkest part of the rust stains as narrow as I could get them.

I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out.  They may not be perfect but once I get them sat into place and get some scenery around them and water done, I'm hoping they blend into the scene.