Show me your Abutments & Retaining Walls

[Noah Lane]

I'm preparing to [likely] scratch build abutments for my layout.  I'll need four abutments total (two girder bridges side by side, and a double wide truss bridge).

Then I need a little retaining wall action around the road, where it slopes down to grade, and also at the track next to it.  And finally, more retaining wallage behind my future wharf scene (next to the interchange track).

The common precast abutments seem to be limiting. I've been pondering some sort of styrene box-construction with brickish texture attached.

Please share what you have made and tips and/or techniques.

Cheers
Noah

[mark dance]

The C&W, like its prototype, has a *lot* of abutments, piers and retaining walls and I use a variety of techniques.

When following prototype pattern drawings for abutments I often use balsa wood cut, shaped and glued together and then covered with epoxy wood filler.







I also use Chooch castings cut and fit into a variety of situations.



And finally I made a latex mold cast from a positive master of 20 Woodland Scenic's cut stone wall sections strung together.  I use this to wet cast Hydrocal on to curved surfaces.







Sometimes circumstances require more than one approach.



Hope that helps

md

[Noah Lane]

Wow Mark, that is quite the selection of abutments and retaining walls!  The photos alone are a helpful guide for me.  I didn't really think about balsa, but yeah I'll probably give that a shot.

Do you guys think I should have a bridge pier in the middle of the two inline truss bridges?  Until today, I assumed I would have one, but I was just considering if not having a pier would look believable.

[mark dance]

If I understand your comment, if you have two separate bridges then each needs to be supported at its ends and so a pier in the middle is needed. 

What I have noticed with bridges perhaps different from other models is that structural transgressions are much more readily noticeable.  Things like  a lack of bridge shoes, or not supporting girder bridges at the vertical seams, or lack of ballast walls where the scenery calls for them or lattice on the wrong side of an engineered girder.  The eye seems to notice this lack of "flow" and strength in the inherent loads and stress a bridge should be carrying.   When I have thought about cutting corners, or more frequently when I have made a mistake, I end up fixing it as it just plain looks wrong.   

My $0.02

md

[BCRail_FSJ]

I use balsa wood covered with Squadron white putty and sanded smooth to simulate cast concrete piers and abutments.

I find it quite tedious and time consuming to get that nice smooth cast concrete finish.  Often 2 or 3 rounds of putty and sanding (with varying grades of sandpaper) are needed.    If you want old crumbling abutments though then this effect is perfect.

Here are mine in the process of being sanded and filled (again) to get rid of some remaining surface pitting in the putty

[Noah Lane]

If I understand your comment, if you have two separate bridges then each needs to be supported at its ends and so a pier in the middle is needed. 

What I have noticed with bridges perhaps different from other models is that structural transgressions are much more readily noticeable.  Things like  a lack of bridge shoes, or not supporting girder bridges at the vertical seams, or lack of ballast walls where the scenery calls for them or lattice on the wrong side of an engineered girder.  The eye seems to notice this lack of "flow" and strength in the inherent loads and stress a bridge should be carrying.   When I have thought about cutting corners, or more frequently when I have made a mistake, I end up fixing it as it just plain looks wrong.   

My $0.02

md

Mark- Yes, you are understanding correctly.  In the picture I posted above, the truss bridge(s) I'm referring to are to the right. 

For me, it's not about cutting corners at all. I'm trying to determine what would look correct.  Thus, I started to question if in this situation, the bridge would call for a pier. I'm still leaning toward having a pier.

BCRail- Those look cool. My layout is freelanced, but set in modern day. I'm likely going for more modern cast-in-place structures. But crumbling infrastructure is prototypical in modern day America, so....

[davefoxx]

Per Ian MacMillan's recommendation, I used anchoring cement.  Nothing beats the look of real concrete.  Build up a form out of styrene to the shape you need, mix a small batch, and voila!  I still need to build the bridge shoes, though.   



It's this stuff, which is inexpensive, and one bucket will probably last a lifetime for modeling purposes:
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Quikrete-10-lb-Anchoring-Cement-124511/100318467#.UmcVEyg6y_c

DFF

[Zox]

I was trying to replicate a particular retaining wall:



So I stacked up layers of styrene bars, with notches filed at appropriate locations along the bars (and a bit of Plastruct for the small random stones on top):



It eventually came out looking like this:



On the other hand, the stone texture on the black part of this wall was made using latex caulk stenciled onto a piece of styrene, using a computer-cut stencil to form the mortar lines:



Here's a worse angle, but a better paint job  :



It might be possible to use this technique to add this texture to an object after it's been made, as well.

[Pomperaugrr]

Depending upon how old or weathered your walls, piers and abutments are, you may want to build in a bit of decay.

I added some spalling concrete detail and exposed re-bar to the piers on this old and road salt abused bridge.  These shots are a few years old and not the best quality, but you get the idea.  There has been extensive scenery work done since then to blend the bridge in.





Eric

[Philip H]

Eric,
That's awesome.  Any detail on how you did it?

[Lemosteam]

Here are some that I did for my layout.  70+ castings strung together along the berm...

[seusscaboose]

Some of Lee's handiwork (enhanced by the Black & Gold)


and his poured towers


and mine

[Pomperaugrr]

Eric,
That's awesome.  Any detail on how you did it?

It was extremely simple.  I just gouged out some styrene and glued in a strand of copper wire for the re-bar.  I painted the copper a deep rust color and used washes for the rust streaks on the concrete.

Eric

[Bruce Bird]

The correct term is not 'shoe' but rather 'bearing'.  As in 'The bridge is bearing all of it's weight at this support point'. Since steel expands and contracts rather easily one end needs to be a fixed bearing and the other end needs to be an expansion bearing. Cylindrical steel rollers were common as were special I-beams that had rounded top and bottom flanges to allow the bearing to rock back and forth.  The bearings included in ME bridge kits are very close to these types. Sometimes flat plates of copper were used as the copper would not rust or pit and the plates could slide over one another.

Make sure you take a close look at the bridge you are modeling and plan for expansion accordingly!

Bruce

[mark dance]

The correct term is not 'shoe' but rather 'bearing'.  As in 'The bridge is bearing all of it's weight at this support point'. ..

Bruce

Thank you for the correction.  It appears "bridge shoe" is in common use only in the model railroading community, I guess similar to the mistakenly used "turnout" to describe a prototype switch.

md