Ray Lambert contacted me with all
sorts of good questions about how to
work with Real Road.
After completing his first design (using
Real Road) he decided he wanted to
expand on the road system in a
different direction.
After talking about it for a while, we
decided to allow me to make the roads
and use the resulting photos for a Real
Road demonstration for the web site.
He has his layout mounted on an old
ping pong table so the road would be
close to 5 feet long.
Our first step was to get a template
made of the Road System Ray had
envisioned. I asked him to draw a
center line on the template so I could
see where the center of the road
should be.
I asked him to take a photo so I could
see how the template went in relation
to his layout.
Here is the paper template he made on
my countertop. He mailed it to me and
I proceeded to get set up to make the
roads. In this photo, I've already taped
the plastic sheet to my counter top.
Rays template wasn't as wide as the
road should be so I would use the
center line he drew to guide me. The
curves were too angular so I looked at
his photo to get a feel for how the
curves should go. I knew that Real
Road could make this happen.
I had this idea for a while and decided
to try it. I used some old Real Road
(cardboard or Popsicle stick would do),
poked holes exactly the width of my
intended road (HO - 3 1/4"), marked a
center line on it and traced down the
center line of the template.
I taped the template in place so I could
slide the guide and magic markers
over the paper without it sliding all over.
