URETHANE STONEWORK CASTINGS
Manufacturer: Railway Design Associates, 241 Silver Street, Monson, MA 01057. Price: Part number 1005G $10.95 per pair.
IF YOU HAVE ever gone to the trouble of building up your own stonework, you know what a blessing Railway Design Associates' castings are. RDA describes them as "weather resistant polyurethane interlocking retaining walls...realistic random-laid cut stone." The scale is nominally 1:24 but the castings would be usable in any of the popular large scales.
In 1:22.5 the longest stones scale out to 1 foot 6 inches and the tallest to 9 inches. In 1:24 those dimensions become 1 foot 7 1/2 inches and 10 inches. We have no rule for 1:29 scale, but in 1:32 the longest stone measures 2 feet 2 inches and the tallest 1 foot 2 1/2 inches. While smaller scale stonemasons might have struggled a little with some of the bigger rocks, they are still credible, particularly around tunnel portals in rugged country.
In actual size each wall section is 6 inches long by 4 1/2 inches high by nearly 1/4 inch thick. Our samples show beautiful "hewn" detail work and virtually no trace of the bubbles common to the urethane casting process. Each end has staggered "Lincoln Log"-type extensions so you can join the sections togther into a longer wall. The manufacturer says if you use a filler of CA ("superglue") or 5-minute epoxy and baking powder, any gaps between the sections will disappear. As the photo shows, one edge of each piece has a smooth "foundation". If you feel it is inappropriate you may saw it off with a razor saw. Be gentle in colder temperatures; sometimes urethane tends to be brittle.
One effective way to color the stonework is first to wash each piece with detergent and water to remove any casting agent residue, then prime each with a flat white, exterior grade house paint. After it has dried for several days, apply a thin wash of artist's acrylics the color of Floquil Grimy Black or Foundation. The resulting shade should serve as a base. You may then use very thin washes of varying colors to pick out individual stones since actual rocks are never all the same. You may also want to add an occasional vertical streak of a lighter or darker color to represent the weathering rain or seepage might cause.
The retaining walls are appropriate to any region of the country. Depending on how you color them, they could represent slate, granite, sandstone, or several other kinds of rock.
Another excellent and useful product from Railway Design. RR
