Getting roads to just ruddy lay flat

I’m rethinking the use of material (or cloth) for the base of the flexible road. It’s a little too unpredictable in how it accepts other material. Looking for an alternative, I’m aware that it is possible to cast your own roads using latex. This got me wondering whether you could buy latex sheets, so I tried a google search. Turns out you can:

In hindsight, I should have seen that coming. But, I then spotted it was possible to purchase rubber sheets, used for insulating and dry lining and such. This struck me as a viable option, so after a quick search around ebay, I found that an A4 sheet could be had for a few quid, so I ordered one as a test

I opted for a 1mm thick sheet but you can go thinner. Thicker options I felt might begin restricting the flexibility a little.

Rubber can be a little ‘sticky’ or at least have a high degree of friction, so it needed a wipe down with a wet cloth to remove anything stuck to it. From there, I cut a strip as the basis of a road.

So far, the properties of this rubber strip look very promising.

Moving on to create the road surface, I’m going to try two approaches. I’ll persevere with the caulk mix but I’ll also try using textured wallpaper to see if this is a shortcut.

I’ve got the following wallpaper types to try out:

And here’s some smaller samples of the above wallpaper sprayed with primer.

I’m looking to create roads for FoW, so all of the textures are a little too big for the 1:100 scale but I like the bottom left for concrete and dirt roads whereas you could just about get away with the top right as cobbled. Bottom right could make a good town square.

I’ll start with trying to make a dirt and cobbled road.