Monday, May 5, 2014

Scenery - Mountains

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I like mountains. I've about 25 linear feet of them most with tunnels and all open inside. Originally I started using aluminum screen wire with hydrocal, and it just took too many coats or the use of paper towels in the mix, which makes it messy. Now I use Woodland scenics cloth which is SO EASY to use. Now I must tell you that I DO USE FOAM as a profile board upon which I fasten the screen wire to. Originally I used drywall screws to hold the screen wire until the plaster dries, but now I actually cut the profile out of lightweight foam, then trace scraps of 3/4 plywood with the shape about 2 inches wide and glue and screw it to the fram so I have something to staple the foam to.
I've also used foam as a flat base for scenery only because it is lightweight.
Stacked foam typically looks like stacked foam unless they put plaster cloth or ALOT of sculptamold on top of it.
I do want to give credit to those very talented people who can and do make nice looking layouts with foam and little or no plaster, but for every one I see that is nice, there are 8-10 that look like stacked foam or worse.

One side of a set of my mountains


Other side of the first set of mountains using cardboard framework on foam profile





Plaster cloth










Finishing up the plaster cloth with plaster castings.


This entire set of mountains are built so they can be totally removed from the train table and without cardiac assistance.
Just my 2 cents, trying to learn to be a model railroader.
Course there is more of my views on scenery and foam on my blog.
Joe