The Blacktop Crossing, Itself

Still working on the railroad, although it's not necessarily a New Year's Resolution!  If the layout is called "Blacktop Crossing", it certainly needs the asphalt road crossing the train tracks.

A back of the shingle approach was found on the Internet a good while back and the road was cut out.  However, it seemed to be very wide and almost dominated the whole layout.  So, let's cut the road back from around 25 feet across (over 3 inches) to around 20 feet across (about 2.75 inches).  Here is road with cut line marked along the outside edge to give more room for the businesses and industry:

The road ought to be a bit higher than ground level (for water to run off?!), so the cork sheet was used again.  Once sections of cork were cut to match the road, they were glued to the shingles and weighted down to dry.

But the blacktop needs a "crossing", right?  The crossing timbers had been procured a while back, but needed some weathering.  India ink and alcohol has been recommended for weathering, but that didn't seem to work too well.  The left end of the bottom timbers were treated with the "wash" to no avail even though the fluid in the bottle is pretty dark.

As luck would have it, some stain was left from my daughter's Adirondack chairs I made for her.  She asked for grey or dark stain.  How 'bout ebony?

Now we'er getting somewhere.

Hmm, how to get the blacktop up to the level of the crossing?  More cork sheet, perhaps?  Let's cogitate on that while the glue and stain dry overnight.