Put a tarp over that thing!4 min read

One thing you don’t see outside of coverings on loads on rolling stock is the good ol’ canvas tarp! Tarps are a fairly common sight everywhere in our everyday life, from keeping a pile of firewood dry or covering a farm tractor in a barn to a drop cloth for painting or to use as a canopy or awning. Incorporating it into your scenery in a realistic fashion is not only easy but inexpensive using materials that every model railroader should have on hand.

The key to making a realistic HO scale tarp is getting it to form fit over top of whatever it is covering or touching about 70% so that the viewer can somewhat discern what is underneath by visible detail through it. In our example here we will show you the use of a tarp as a canopy with wood beam supports used in the back alley of our Lisa’s Dress Shop and Millinery. First we built the supports for it using some scrap wood that we weathered hard and at a drastic sloping angle to give it a dilapidated appearance. How or what you choose to cover with your tarp is up to you of course. We wanted the top cross beams to show their shape underneath to give a look like the tarp was at one time tight against it and rain and weather had thinned it in time and is beginning to sag in the middle areas between the beams which stretches the tarp out. Remember tarp also shrinks when wet so over time, so would your cover, sun and rain will eventually cause discoloration usually in lighter shades.

What you need.
The proper sized scrap of copy paper (We used a post it note with the sticky part cut off first) you will need to cover. You may not want to cover all of the object and have your whatever it is peeking out from an edge. In this case it was the near front cross beam with some exposure of wood.
Acrylic craft paint in the color of tarp you wish to have. For our example we used Khaki by Craft Smart found at Michaels Craft store in the 2 oz. craft bottles. However you can use whatever brand or color you like. Tans, Camel, Yellow Ochre, etc. Even olive green which was also very common not just for military modelers exclusively.

Finally white glue. Not diluted.

To begin we take the paper we cut in the size we desire and we paint both sides of it. make sure to paint the very fine edges all the way around as well. otherwise it will show and look like painted paper. What we don’t want.

Once it is completely dry coat the underside of the tarp in white glue mixed 3 parts glue 1 part water and using your finger to spread it around evenly but not to the point you over soak this thing. When all covered edge to edge lightly coat the top just so it has a slightly wet look. In the photo attached you will see how wet on top it is.

Now gently lower it back onto your object and allow it to droop over the more prominent edges as we did with the beams on our example.

Here you will need to HURRY but be very careful. Go wash your hands as quickly as possible from the white glue you had on them and dry thoroughly. But do it FAST. Your glue is already drying. When clean and dry, run your fingers with gentle pressure over the edges smoothing it tight to some, and not so tight to others. This will form fit the tarp to those prominent edges and also adhere to it. We ran our fingers over it repeatedly . In our case we had to attach it to the wall and over the front side top beam. So we ran our fingers along the wall edge to make it look lie it was attached to the wall somehow, and on the front top beam. We cut away any excess raggedly to make it look a little weather torn. The wet glue should not every break through the paper and when eventually dry will give the appearance of a very realistic tarp. add nailhole marks with an ultra-fine tip sharpie anywhere you would think it would be tacked down. We also added a little weathering chalks in darker browns where the beams stand out, but just a very very light dusting to give it character and a three dimensional appearance.